It was towards the end of the week when they were at supper one evening that the doctor mentioned casually that he had seen a small herd of seals further along the coast, and added: ‘If you’re interested, Annis, I’ll show you how to reach them—it’s not far if we cut across the base of the mountains. Only wear your boots.’
The invitation was given so casually that she wasn’t sure if he had meant it, but when supper was finished and she had cleared the table and put everything to rights, she found him waiting, sitting on an upturned box outside the hut. It was already late evening, but there would be no night, of course; the sun shone, a rich gold, above the horizon and would stay like that until day began once more.
‘Boots,’ he reminded her, and she went to her hut and obediently pulled on the strong footwear she had been given on her arrival. She picked up her anorak too, for the weather could change with disconcerting suddenness and she was wearing only a cotton blouse and slacks.
They went for the most part in silence. For one thing, it was quite hard work scrambling over the bare rock and for another it hardly seemed the right background for light conversation. Once or twice they stopped while her companion pointed out a seabird or a particularly beautiful ice floe, its pale green turned to gold by the sun, creaking and cracking as it went on its way south, but for the greater part of the time he went steadily ahead, turning to give her a hand over a particularly tricky bit.
They were cutting across a curve in the coastline, somewhere Annis hadn’t been yet, for on her boat trips they almost always went in the other direction. Now they rounded the last massive cliff and she caught her breath.
The mountains stretched in front of them, sweeping down to the sea, their snow-capped tops contrasting with the dark grey of their slopes and the dark blue of the sea. Their line was broken directly before them, though, and a fjord, its beginnings lost in a great glacier a mile or more away, cut them in two. Its water was smooth and still and dark, for the mountains held back the sun, and the barren shore, thick with ice, looked grandly desolate. It seemed incredible to Annis that anything should want to live there, but the doctor had been right. The seals were packed snugly side by side along the side of the fjord, with the giant male seals sitting on ice floes, guarding them. They looked fatherly and a little pompous, but they never took their eyes away from the mother seals and their pups.
‘We can get closer, they’re not afraid of us,’ said the doctor quietly, and helped her across a ridge of rock.
‘How can anyone bear to kill them?’ demanded Annis fiercely. ‘Look, their eyes are just like ours and the babies look just like our babies.’
Her companion’s firm mouth twitched slightly but he answered her gravely: ‘Indeed they do, and I deplore their killing, but here they seem safe, although one wonders how they can live so contentedly in this barren land.’
‘Yes, but it’s beautiful too, although it frightens me. I had no idea—I don’t know what I expected, but I felt sick with fright when I got here. It’s not like anything else…’ She felt she wasn’t explaining very well, but he seemed to understand her.
‘It’s still our world,’ he reminded her. ‘It’s hard to equate it with Piccadilly Circus or the Dam Square in Amsterdam, but it’s utter peace and quiet and awe-inspiring nature at her most magnificent.’
She was surprised into saying: ‘Oh, do you feel like that about it, too? Only I couldn’t have put it as well as you have.’
She took a careless step and slipped and his hand grasped her arm, and then without any hesitation at all, he caught her close and kissed her. It wasn’t at all the kind of kiss Arthur had been in the habit of giving her; he took his time over it and she thought confusedly that she was enjoying it very much.
His pleasantly friendly: ‘You’re such a beautiful girl, Annis—that and the midnight sun’s magic…’ brought her back with a sickening bump to a prosaic world again. Commendably, she managed to say coolly:
‘It is magic, isn’t it, and I wouldn’t have missed it for all the world. I’d like to come here in winter, though…’
He had thrown a great arm round her shoulders and she felt a thrill of pleasure.
‘Would you indeed?’ He turned his head to study her face. ‘Yes, I do believe you mean that. I came up here a couple of years ago for a few weeks and it’s quite extraordinary, more so because the people who live here take it for granted.’
‘But you live in Holland?’ She had never asked him any questions before; probably he would snub her politely, but he didn’t.
‘Oh, yes—I’ve a practice in a small country town; Goes—it’s near Middelburg, if you know where that is.’
‘Well, of course I do,’ she protested indignantly, ‘though I’ve never been to Holland.’
She felt a strong urge to ask him if he were married, if he had children and a family. She wanted to know more about him, but although he had kissed her with some warmth, his manner was as casual as it always had been and she was sensible enough to know that kissing a girl when there wasn’t another female to be seen for miles was a perfectly normal thing for a man to do. She stifled a sigh and asked: ‘What exactly does everyone do here? Freddy doesn’t make it very clear.’
He threw her a quick look. ‘It’s a radio station, you knew that? We send weather reports and relay shipping news and there’s an early warning system…’
‘Oh, I see… I suppose I’m not supposed to be too curious?’
‘The boss relies on your discretion, but unless you happened to be an electronics expert with a very inquisitive nose, I don’t think you would be any the wiser.’
‘Well, I’m not particularly interested,’ she said loftily, and he laughed. ‘You’re not bored?’
‘Bored? Heavens, no—how could I possibly be that? I don’t have much time for a start, do I? And there’s such a lot to cram into each day.’
‘And there’s a treat in store for you in a couple of days. Fetching the stores from Ny Aalesund. There’s one shop there and it stocks everything, although not all of it is on sale to the tourists from the cruising trips coming from Norway during the summer. The men will give you a list as long as your arm and you’d better make one for yourself. We only go once a month.’
‘Don’t you go on the Coastal Express?’
‘Sometimes, but the jetty isn’t any good and we have to go out to her by boat, and transferring the stuff from her on the return journey is quite a lengthy business.’
‘Then how do we go?’ Annis gazed round her. ‘There’s no road…’
‘We fly.’
‘Oh—does the plane come from Tromso?’
‘No—there’s one here, it’s in a boathouse on the other side of the radio station. I don’t suppose you’ve been as far.’
She shook her head. ‘No. It’ll be fun to go to Ny Aalesund.’
They went back presently and she went to the hut and joined Freddy, writing one of his rare, sketchy letters. He looked up when she went in. ‘Hullo—enjoy the seals?’
‘Enormously.’
‘Jake’s a good fellow to be with, never gets worked up about anything. I’m told that he’s much sought after by the birds.’
‘Don’t be vulgar, Freddy.’ She added carelessly: ‘He’s not so young, though, is he?’
Freddy grinned. ‘Thirty-five, very up-and-coming in his profession, too. A worthy target for your charms, love.’
She turned a wintry eye on him. ‘Freddy, I’ve already begged you not be vulgar. I’m sure Doctor van Germert is a very pleasant man, that’s all.’
He