Dark Matter Read Free

heir was ‘most frightfully cut up’ (about the expedition, not his father), but although he felt ‘absolutely ghastly’ about it, it simply wouldn’t do for him to be gone a year, so he had to scratch.
    The others actually talked about cancelling. Would it be ‘responsible’ to go without a medico? I had a job keeping my temper. To hell with ‘responsible’; we’re young, fit men! Besides, if anyone gets sick, there’s adoctor at Longyearbyen – and that’s only, what, two days away from camp.
    It turns out that Hugo and Gus agreed with me, because when we took a vote, only tub-of-lard Algie voted against. And since he’s the last person to stick his neck out, he backed down as soon as he realised he was outnumbered.
    Afterwards, I went back to my room and threw up. Then I got out my map of Spitsbergen. The map calls it ‘Svalbard’ because that’s its new name, but everyone uses the old one, which is also the name of the biggest island. That’s where we’re going. I’ve marked our base camp in red. There, in the far north-east corner, on the tip of that promontory. Gruhuken. Gru-huken. I think ‘huken’ means hook, or headland. Not sure about ‘Gru’.
    There’s nothing there. Just a name on the map. I love that. And I love the fact that none of the three previous expeditions ever camped there. I want it to be ours.
    Everyone was nervous on the train to Newcastle. Lots of hearty jokes from the ’varsity that I couldn’t follow. Gus tried to explain them, but it only made me feel more of an outsider. In the end he gave up, and I went back to staring out of the window.
    We had an awful crossing in the mail packet to Bergen and up the Norwegian coast, and Algie andHugo were seasick. Hugo vomited neatly, like a cat, but fat Algie spattered all over our luggage. Gus mopped up after him without complaint; apparently they’ve been best friends since prep school. Thank God I’ve got a cast-iron stomach, so at least I didn’t have to worry about being sick. But every night as I rolled in my berth, I dreamed I was back at Marshall Gifford. Every morning I woke up soaked in sweat, and had to tell myself it wasn’t true.
    And now here we are at Tromsø. Tromsø, where Amundsen took off in his flying boat nine years ago and was never seen again. Tromsø: three hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle. My first encounter with the midnight sun.
    Only there isn’t any. The gentle, penetrating mizzle hasn’t let up in days. Tromsø is a nice little fishing town: wooden houses painted red, yellow and blue, like a child’s building blocks, and I’m told that it’s backed by beautiful snowy mountains. I wouldn’t know, I’ve never seen them.
    But I don’t care. I love everything about this place, because it isn’t London. Because I’m free. I love the clamour of the gulls and the sea slapping at the harbour walls. I love the salty air and the smell of tar. Above all, I love this soft, watery, never-ending light. Hugo says this is probably how Catholics imagine purgatory, and maybe he’s right. There’s no dawn andno dusk. Time has no meaning. We’ve left the real world, and entered a land of dreams.
    Of course, the gulls mew day and night, as they can’t tell the difference, but I don’t even mind that. I’m writing this with the curtains open on the strange, pearly ‘night’ that is no night. I can’t sleep. The expedition is really happening. Everything we do,
everything
, only makes it more real.
    I was right about Gus being a
Boy’s Own
hero. He doesn’t have that square jaw or those clear blue eyes for nothing; he takes being Expedition Leader seriously. The funny thing is, I don’t find that annoying; maybe because I get the sense that the expedition matters almost as much to him as it does to me.
    Months ago, he engaged the British vice consul here as our agent. He’s called Armstrong and he’s been busy. He’s chartered a ship to take us to Gruhuken. He’s bought coal, boats and