Day 5
Noah
The clang of metal rang in Noah’s ears. He shot up, his head brushing against a row of flimsy icicles on the inside of his tent. He blinked, drinking in the daylight glowing pink through the red fabric. He waited for the rest of the nightmare to consume him, but all he heard was the metal. A moment later Rachel stirred beside him.
‘What’s that noise?’ she murmured.
‘You can hear it?’ he asked.
She rubbed her face and fixed her gaze on him. ‘Yes,’ she replied with a frown. Dark smudges circled Rachel’s eyes and her usually glossy blonde locks were sticking outwards in one solid – electrocuted-like – lump. She caught Noah’s glance and tried to run her fingers through her hair. A moment later she gave up and slipped her cream wool hat over her head.
Valek’s voice shouted into the tent. ‘Up and Adam,’ he said.
‘Who’s Adam?’ Rachel yawned. She rotated her right shoulder and flinched, her face contorting in pain.
‘I think he means “at ’em”.’
The clang sounded again; this time Noah pictured two camping pots banging together. It hadn’t been part of the nightmare. He hadn’t had a nightmare. They’d overslept, that was all. Countless nights of sleep shattered by the wail of sirens. Countless times he’d woken up with a silent scream lodged in his throat and his heart beating fast enough to explode inside his chest.
Noah felt for the penknife in his pocket and prodded it against the cut on his upper thigh. The sting had gone, leaving behind a scab that trapped and tugged his leg hair. For the first time in over a year he hadn’t woken up with the burning need for distraction.
Noah’s mind raced back over last night. They’d been exhausted. Beyond exhausted. All of them. He’d argued with Rachel, and they’d both climbed into their sleeping bags in a stony silence, but it had been Molly on Noah’s mind as he’d been pulled into the depths of an exhausted sleep. Molly who’d saved him from the darkness again.
He stretched and breathed in a deep lungful of cold air, allowing a smile to creep across his face.
‘What? Why are you smiling?’ Rachel asked. She was still frowning but a slight smirk played on her lips.
Noah’s mind flashed with the image of Molly’s deep brown eyes. He glanced at Rachel and swallowed. ‘It’s nothing,’ he said. ‘I just slept well, that’s all.’
Rachel’s smile stretched wider. ‘I told you, Noah. I told you this is exactly what you needed. Exactly what we needed.’ She sat up and scooched her sleeping bag closer to his body. She pressed her lips against his cheek and leant closer.
Noah’s body tensed. It took all of his strength not to shove her away.
‘Do you think we’ve got time for a quickie?’ She grinned.
He felt his eyes widen, and he was pretty sure the look crossing his face was one of horror. Did he dream their argument last night?
‘I guess not.’ She rolled away and unzipped her sleeping bag.
The words stacked up in his mind, and he knew he had to say them before he lost his nerve. ‘About last night –’
‘It was a stupid fight. We were tired.’ She shrugged.
‘It was more than that and you know it. We want different things, Rachel.’
She turned back to look at him. A hurt creased her face but there was acceptance in her eyes. She knew it too.
‘We … had something special,’ he continued before he lost his nerve. ‘But now we want different things. It feels like you’re constantly waiting for me to change back to the person I was before, but I’m never going to be that person again.’
‘But I still love you,’ she said.
‘Are you sure?’ Noah kept talking before she could twist the question around. He didn’t know what he’d say if she asked. ‘You loved the fact I was a risk-taker. You loved my impulsiveness. You loved going for nights out with our – your – friends that ended on a dance floor, dancing to music so loud we couldn’t hear ourselves think. You loved my ambition and my career. Am I wrong?’
A pain spread across Noah’s chest. The sense of loss felt almost overwhelming. He didn’t want to be any of those things any more; he couldn’t be those things any more, and yet it hurt to remember. It was impossible to think about who he’d been without thinking about why he’d changed – the empty street that hadn’t been empty. The flickering orange pool of light. The damp cold tarmac digging into his knees.
‘No.’ Rachel dropped her gaze and fiddled with the zip on her trouser pocket.
‘I want a quiet life away from London,’ Noah said.
Rachel smirked. ‘Now I know you’ve lost the plot. London is your favourite place on earth. Mine too. If you just came back to work for a week –’
‘I’m never going back,’ he sighed.
Neither spoke for a moment. Beyond the silence between them Noah could hear the sound of the group packing up.
‘We’d better get going,’ she said, shuffling to the entrance and unzipping the tent. Bright white daylight pierced his eyes. He rubbed a hand over his eyes and when he opened them again Rachel was gone, leaving their argument half finished, and his next sentence unsaid.
When we get back to London, I’m moving out. A sudden relief swept like the mountain wind through Noah’s body. He’d known for a long time that it was over between them. Somewhere in the darkness he’d hoped she’d make the decision for him, but Rachel’s stubborn streak, her need to fix him, was bulletproof Kevlar and nothing he did could penetrate that. Maybe now she’d listen.
The relief morphed into guilt. Rachel was all he had. His friends – the guys he’d considered friends anyway – had ditched him the minute he’d quit the business. They’d all known who his father was; they’d guessed the trajectory of Noah’s own career, and had seen him as a pair of coat-tails they could ride on all the way to the top. When Noah had left, he was no longer any use – hell he was practically toxic by that point.
He still had his mum, he guessed. Although she enjoyed the lifestyle provided by his dad far too much to step out from his shadow and offer Noah much in the way of support. He had his dad too in a strange sort of way. Despite the heavy sighs, and closed-eyed headshakes, his dad still wanted what was best for Noah. Noah just didn’t agree any more on what ‘best’ meant.
If he walked away from Rachel, he’d have no one in his life. Noah waited for the fear to hit, the panic, but it didn’t. He pulled on his boots and rolled up their sleeping bags. He’d wait until they were back in England, then he’d tell her. Breaking up with Rachel in the middle of the Arctic, whilst sharing a tent, with no option of escaping each other, would be cruel on both of them.
Tonight they’d sleep in shared cabins at the fish camp, then one more day of camping and they’d finish. He’d let their relationship drag on for a year too long. Another two days wouldn’t make any difference.
***
Noah pulled his goggles into place as he stepped out of the tent. He spun in a slow circle, staring first at the peak of the mountain, the grey rock jutting from the snow. The distance to the edge and the fifty-foot drop seemed shorter this morning. He wondered how close he’d been to losing the tent over the edge or falling over with it.
He turned and the grey rock became mile upon mile of snow stretching into the distance like a barren desert of endless white. Their direction for the day.
A flurry of dog barks pulled his attention back to camp. Noah moved quickly, digging out the line of the tent and folding it in his arms. The wind had died leaving a stillness, like a photograph of a halcyon landscape they’d somehow become trapped in.
‘Let’s get the dogs on the sled lines now, Mushers,’ Lee shouted. ‘We’re travelling fifty kilometres today, and if you want the treat of sleeping in a log cabin tonight then we need to cover it before sundown.’
Noah stepped across the snow towards the sleds. As he drew nearer to his dogs, they sprung up one by one – dominoes in reverse. A second later the torrent of their barking hit his ears. ‘I’m coming,’ he called to them with a smile.
‘They’re not very patient are they?’ Molly stood up from where she’d been crouching beside her own line of dogs.
‘No.’ He grinned, rubbing his hands over Winter’s back. Ice jumped up, pushing his silver head between Noah’s legs. Noah had a sneaking suspicion that Valek and his wife had run out of ideas for names when it had come to naming Noah’s pack. Either that or the names had been chosen by a six-year-old. Noah moved round the line, stroking each of the dogs in turn, leaving Snow and Frost until last so he could finish beside Molly.
Noah stared for a moment too long, taking in Molly’s black curls, springing out from her bobble hat. Her lips were stretched into an easy smile, and he had the sudden desire to step closer, lift her goggles away, and stare into her eyes.
One of Molly’s dogs whimpered before jumping up and placing its paws on Molly’s waist. Molly laughed and scratched the creamy white fur of its ears before pushing the dog back to the snow. ‘I love these dogs, but boy, do they stink.’ She laughed before smiling again at Noah.
Noah didn’t think it was possible for the morning to be any brighter, but Molly’s smile drove a beam of light straight into him.