Friday, 11 November
Deep snow surrounded Aurora Sky Station, the temperature around minus ten. The wind chill caused pain in Isla’s temples, as though the blood in her veins was slowly freezing. The inside of her bones hurt, and her teeth ached, and her toes had gone from painful to feeling as though they weren’t there at all. But still she’d stayed, mesmerised by the sight of the Northern Lights through her lens.
‘The Aurora Borealis.’
She turned, the fur around her snowsuit hood tickling her cheeks, and lowered her camera.
‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ the man, early fifties at a guess, continued, stomping from foot to foot, snow crunching beneath his boots. He rubbed his gloved hands together. ‘I’m Alex.’
Isla stared, unsure whether to enter into conversation. He was tall and slender, with feathers of silvery-white hair poking out from beneath his hood. He smiled, his sparkling blue eyes appealing in his tanned, lightly lined face. He seemed to pick up on her apprehension. ‘I believe we’re both staying at Camp Arctic.’
He looked suddenly familiar. She’d seen him when she first arrived, and several times the day before. He was sharing a room with a much younger woman.
Isla smiled. ‘Ah, yes,’ she said, a slight stutter in her voice, a misty cloud leaving her mouth as she spoke. She looked towards the sky. ‘It’s stunning – indescribable – although I’ll give it a jolly good try.’
‘Ah, you’re a writer, yes? I did wonder when I saw you on your laptop back at the lodge. What do you write?’
‘Articles, mostly travel.’ She smiled. ‘I’m on the final chapter of my book.’
‘Amazing. Will we see it in the shops?’
She shook her head and shrugged. ‘Perhaps, one day.’ An embarrassed tingle rose in her neck, as the words tripped off her tongue. Jack had always been behind her, encouraging her to finish her book, been so full of praise, but now, as she stood in the darkness, she wondered if she’d been naive. She’d devoted so many hours to it, but perhaps she’d been a fool. Maybe it had simply been her way of dodging reality through the years.
‘We should head back,’ came a voice through the darkness. It was the younger woman she’d seen with Alex, now standing by the chairlift in a pink snowsuit. Isla knew instantly that this was the couple she’d seen on her walk the day she arrived. That Alex was the man who’d waved at her with his walking stick. The man she’d fled from in such a rush, stupidly afraid.
‘Well, however beautiful this all is,’ he said with another smile, ‘I’m more than ready for bed.’
‘Goodnight,’ Isla said.
He went to step away. ‘To be honest, I’m not looking forward to the chairlift down.’
Isla laughed. ‘No, it’s quite wobbly, isn’t it?’
He nodded. ‘But I guess we have to suffer these things, if we want to see the wonders of the world. It was nice meeting you . . . sorry, I don’t know your name.’
‘Isla,’ she said.
‘Well, Isla, perhaps we’ll see you again,’ he said. ‘What are your plans?’
‘I may go to Narvik tomorrow. I want to get some photos of the Norwegian Fjords.’
‘We’re hoping to see them too,’ he said. ‘I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.’
He trudged away, and Isla turned and raised her camera towards the sky once more. The liquid greens drifted across the cloudless, star-filled sky, like a fantasy creature let loose from captivity, weaving psychedelically on its way to another planet. She wanted to stay, up there she could pretend everything was OK, but her fingers ached with the cold, and it was getting late. She searched the darkness. The mountain had been alive with people earlier, all gasping with excitement as they witnessed the phenomenon, but the throng had now whittled down to a few stalwarts.
She stayed a few more minutes before putting her camera in its case and collapsing her tripod. She had so many photographs. Two or three would be perfect for her book. One might even be right for the cover.
She walked across the mountain, paraffin lanterns lighting her way towards the chairlift. Once there, a chair glided in and thumped onto the platform.
A young lad steadied the swaying metal chair. He held out his arm and guided Isla into it. The bar locked down over her and he pushed the chair onwards.
At first it moved swiftly downwards, heading away from the mountain, before coming to an abrupt stop midway down. The sky looked even greener than it had been up above, and the circulating freezing air clung to her like a fog. She was glad to be swaddled in the snugness of her snowsuit.
As she swung to and fro in the gentle breeze, the vacant chairs around her creaking in the darkness, the neon lights bending and stretching in the low sky, she caught sight of someone standing in the darkness below, staring up at her.