Making It Up as I Go Along

  ‘Christ alive!’

  ‘Yes, I saw a bird out of the window and I was wondering what make it was and the next thing I know I was looking it up in a reference book.’

  ‘Shite,’ I say. ‘This is worse than we thought …’

  10.45 p.m.

  Just before we go to sleep, Himself says to me, ‘Do you pronounce it “glassy-er” or “glay-shur”?’

  ‘“Glassy-er”,’ of course,’ says I. ‘Like Fox’s Glassy-er Mints. Or Fox’s Glassy-er Fruits.’

  After a pause he says, ‘Trust you to bring everything back to sweets.’

  He is a fine one to talk, him and his birds.

  DAY TEN

  Inspiration strikes!

  Listens, lads, there’s no need for you to write the dystopian telly series set in the near future in Antarctica, because I think I can do it myself! Yes!

  Here’s my pitch … The year is 2036 and the planet has almost run out of fuel and the race is on between several nations to bag Antarctica. The United Nations has managed to prevent an all-out war, but hostilities are bubbling away.

  Himself and I are brainstorming about names. I want to call it The Dead Land and he says it needs ‘Ice’ in the title. But now he has suggested The South, and I agree that it is memorable.

  Okay!

  Opening scene

  Fabulous woman alone in a black Zodiac in a calm sea full of icy-bergs and surrounded by icy-mountains. She is wearing a red waterproof parka and big sunglasses and what looks like no make-up, because she is one of those derring-do women who wouldn’t be bothered with that sort of thing, but all the same she has lovely skin and you can tell she wears her sunblock.

  Her hair is long and dark and thick and curly and she has no trouble with frizz. She is steering her little boat and she sees a couple of penguins ‘dolphining’ around and a couple of lazy-arse seals stretched out on ice floes. She is smiling, even though she is by herself, and you can tell she is ‘in her element’.

  Suddenly there is a REALLY LOUD boomy noise and she looks concerned. She consults a couple of instruments and she looks even more concerned, but she doesn’t start talking to herself like Sandra Bullock did in Gravity, which was annoying and dis-believable. Then she gets on her walkie-talkie and says, ‘Camp South? Camp South? Do you read me?’

  But there is only crackling noise.

  Then she looks behind her and a MAHOSSIVE wave is coming from about a mile away across the mirrory sea, and she looks really shocked and says, ‘Oh shit!’

  Scene ends

  New scene

  An aerial shot, moving fast, following a little propeller plane as it swoops over huge ice shelves and snowy mountains and a rocky colony of rowdy penguins and over silvery water with whales and seals breaking the surface. The plane lands on an icy runway and an INCREDIBLY HANDSOME man gets off, swinging his bag over his shoulder in a manly fashion. I am debating who should play this incredibly handsome man. I am thinking maybe Pasha or Benedict Cumberbatch or Tom Dunne.

  But no, I might need Pasha for the Russian part of the plot, which will come in a couple of episodes, because there is a Russian base down here, also a Chinese one, also a Scandinavian one.

  All right, so Tom Dunne, playing the part of ‘Tom Dunne’, swings down the aeroplane steps, in his outdoorsy gear and wrap-around sunglasses, and swaggers into the base, where he is greeted by Sawyer from Lost, Sayid from Lost and Freckles from Lost. (I never really got over Lost finishing.)

  Tom Dunne: ‘Hey! Looks like the gang’s all back together.’

  Sawyer (surprised/alarmed): ‘I thought you’d done your last winter out here!’

  Tom Dunne: ‘Changed my mind. Where’s my bunk?’

  He walks down a short, curved-roof corridor with no windows.

  Sayid: ‘You’re back? I thought …?’

  Tom Dunne (gives a short mirthless laugh): ‘They let me out.’

  Tom Dunne finds a narrow bunk built into the wall. He starts emptying his bag into a metal locker and puts a quare, futuristic, holographic photo on his bedside yoke. Out in the corridor, Sawyer and Sayid are talking.

  Sawyer: ‘Looks like you’re rooming with Psycho. Good luck with that.’

  Sayid: ‘Just so long as he stays away from the spoons.’

  Scene cuts to a control room, where a woman is sitting, watching gauges and screens and that sort of thing. I’ve decided that this woman is played by me. On the CCTV she sees Tom Dunne at his bunk, unpacking his stuff.

  Me: ‘Oh my God. He came back …’

  Scene cuts to a group shot, where maybe thirty people of obviously different nationalities are gathered together for a welcome/motivational speech from the base commander, who is played by Krister Henriksson, who is (as always) charismatic, avuncular, kindly, wise and Swedish.

  The camera scans over the faces, which look earnest, keen, enthusiastic and a little apprehensive. Some of the faces are: Zayn from One Direction,* Mary Berry, Paul Hollywood, Claudia Winkleman, Leonard Cohen, Sarah Lund, José Mourinho, Michael Bublé, Dermot O’Leary, Cher, Graham Norton, Beth, two very short red-haired Irish brothers (the Redzers), Kerry Washington, George Michael, Gianfranco Zola, my mammy, Cathy Kelly, Fran from Love/Hate, Tommy from Love/Hate, Judy McLoughlin, Fergal McLoughlin, Sali Hughes, Margaret Mountford, Posh Kate, Nile Rodgers, Angélique Kidjo, Louise Moore, JohnEamonChippyBill, India Knight, Mary Kennedy, Djocko Djokovic, Michelle Obama, Jean Byrne the weather girl, Jonathan Lloyd, the entire cast of 1864, Jojo Moyes, Zoë Ball. And other people I like but can’t think of right now.

  Krister Henriksson: ‘Welcome back for another polar winter! People don’t know how or why we put ourselves through this, but this year, more than ever, our presence is vital down here. Blahdeeblah …’

  Back to the control room. I have made contact with the Scandinavian base. Lars Mikkelsen’s face appears on my screen. We smile warmly at each other. We are friends ‘of old’.

  Me: ‘Here we are back again for another winter, Lars.’

  Lars: ‘Krister already said that. There’s no need for you to say it too. Keep things moving.’

  Me: ‘Very well. Have you made contact with the Chinese base?’

  Lars: ‘Negative.’

  Me: ‘Me either. A bit worrying, isn’t it, Lars?’

  Lars: ‘It is worrying, Emkay, but it’s early days. This is only the first episode.’

  Me: ‘You’re right, Lars, it’s early days indeed. Okay, over and out.’

  Lars: ‘Over and out. And Phillip Christensen says hello.’

  Me: ‘… hello back to Phillip.’

  I take a look at some gauges and seem startled. René, the French bloke, is beside me. (He is played by Jérôme out of The Returned.)

  Me: ‘René, my readings are compromised.’ (Or some such technical guff.)

  René: ‘Let me check. Hey, that’s funny. The numbers are falling. Hey, HK, take a look at this.’

  The base’s second in command, HK – a tall, handsome, kindly man, played by Himself Keyes – comes and looks over René’s shoulder. HK watches the figures and seems terribly alarmed.

  HK: ‘Take cover, take cover! This is not a drill!’

  There is a big bang and the walls and everything shakes and all the people in the meet-and-greet topple over and fall on the floor and the lights flicker and go out and the whole place is in darkness.

  A voice: ‘Is that your hand, Mary Berry? Well, you dirty article!’

  Outdoor shot of the igloo-shaped base blazing with light, the
n going completely dark.

  opening credits folley!!!

  So what do you think?! Himself and I are going to pitch to Nick Marston on our return from the Frozen South. Hopefully it will be on your telly-boxes for the autumn. It all depends on Tom Dunne’s availability.

  Palmer Station!

  Adélie penguins!

  10.30 a.m.

  We set off, on a blindingly blue day, in a Zodiac, for Palmer Island, a US research station. The sea is so full of chunks of ice, it’s like driving through a white Slush Puppie (vanilla flavoured). However, we are very lucky because until shortly ago the island was iced in and no one could get to it at all. And the people living there had no way of getting out. Imagine!

  Yes, so Palmer Station is a US research station, with forty-four staff on it, doing research into krill and things, and hardly any ships are allowed to visit, only ten a season, and we are among the lucky ones.

  The buildings are metallic and basic and have many signs sellotaped to the wall, a bit like a hostel would. For examples: ‘Turn off the light’ or ‘Do not sleep upside down’ or ‘Do not torment the krill.’ And that sort of thing.

  I read a book called Antarctica before I came here, and it suggested that from time to time people go a bit bananas here and suddenly try to stick a spoon into their colleague’s ear. (You will note my reference to that in my dystopian telly-box show.) But then the madness passes and they are all pals again. Until the next time … They call it being ‘toasty’ or ‘going toast’.

  I walk around and stick my head down corridors and open doors that maybe I shouldn’t and in general take many, many mental notes for The South.

  There is a gym and chocolate brownies and lots of krill in a white bucket, which everyone takes photos of. (I cannot see the thrill myself.) Apparently they used to have pet dogs out here but now they’re not allowed.

  We asked the ‘man’ what he missed and he said ‘Fresh vegetables.’ So there you are. I would miss the Twitters. Also the telly.

  2.45 p.m.

  After lunch we set sail for an island which is an Adélie penguin colony, and do you know Adélie penguins? They’re a bit different from gentoo penguins (which are your ‘classic’ penguins) because they have a FABLISS hairdo. Sort of like they’ve shaved their hairline and then backcombed the rest so it is sticky-uppy. Hippest of all the penguins.

  As we came in to land, I saw a couple of them tap-dancing in the distance, but the minute I tried to show Himself, they stopped and put their flippers in their pockets and started whistling instead.

  There were lots of chicks, and most of them were as big as their mothers but looked like a totally different species: they were round and goofy and looked like they were trying to wear grey fake-fur coats. They were adorably ungainly, trying to stand up and then falling flat on their faces. One of them had just discovered his flippers and was waving them around, delighted with himself.

  The parents and nippers were clustered in groups of about thirty, but now and again two or three of the parents would break away from the group and hurry off at top speed, looking from the back like they were old women in black headscarves and long black topcoats, who were late for Mass.

  Also, from time to time a pair of them would take a notion and stretch their bodies really tall and long and wrap their necks around each other’s and make trumpeting noises at the sky, like totally mad madzers. Perhaps a mating ritual? Or maybe just letting off steam?

  4.49 p.m.

  I have changed the name of my dystopian telly series to The Frozen. Or maybe People of the Ice (Himself came up with that one).

  5.42 p.m.

  Sweet baba Jay, there’s been an announcement over the bing-bong – an invitation to the Polar Plunge, where they take passengers out in their togs in a Zodiac and then they jump off the little boat into the icy sea, and I am not going to do it! I don’t care. I do not need to experience everything once. I find life challenging enough without jumping into an icy sea. Himself is doing it though. And I cannot bear to even go and watch him. It feels cruel and dreadful and terrible and I just want it all to be over.

  5.50 p.m.

  Himself says, ‘You don’t have to be involved in any way.’

  I say, ‘I’m not going to be.’

  He says, ‘You don’t have to be involved in any way.’

  I say, ‘I’m not going to be.’

  He says, ‘Do I have slippers?’

  I say, ‘Go in your runners.’

  ‘With my togs?’

  ‘Yes, with your togs.’

  ‘It’d be better if I went in my slippers.’

  ‘You haven’t got any slippers.’

  ‘But they said on the bing-bong I was to come in my slippers.’

  ‘But you haven’t got any slippers.’

  ‘Help me look for the slippers.’

  ‘There are no slippers! There are no slippers! THERE ARE NO SLIPPERS!’

  6.01 p.m.

  He’s gone. To calm myself, I will count my Solpadeines.

  6.13 p.m.

  He’s back! He admits that it was ‘shockingly cold’. He said he just ‘jumped in and jumped out’ but that the Dutchman swam out to an iceberg and preened a little. I said, ‘What Dutchman?’ He said, ‘Have you not met the Dutchman?’

  In other news, his lad is ‘much shrunken’, but should return to normal, given time.

  In other other news, he reports that the M&S-style snacks are ‘out but covered in cling film’.

  6.16 p.m.

  He says no one came down in their slippers. He says, ‘I don’t think there were any slippers.’

  8.45 p.m.

  After dinner, there was a chocolate buffet. With chocolate penguins! And other chocolate beasts! And then! We were looking out to sea, at the quare, beautiful light on the ice mountains, and we saw eight penguins swimming towards us, looking like the arrival of the cavalry. And then!!! Yes! Three whales. Humpbacks. A mother and a father and a baby, and they swam right up beside the ship and swam alongside us for a good while, doing their blowhole stuff, until one by one they curved up and showed the fin on their back and then, like they were saying goodbye, showed us their tail-fins and then disappeared, down into the deep, leaving behind three circles of water.

  I haven’t got words to even start to describe how rewarding and enriching this journey has been. It’s like I’m drunk on beauty. Everywhere I look, I see astonishing natural magnificence. Just now I’m looking out the window and there’s a mountain that looks like K2. And beside that there’s another one and another one, and there’s nothing, not a single sign, that human beings have ever existed. Everything is still and poised; not even the clouds are moving. It’s so surreally perfect that it almost looks like a painted backdrop.

  Also, my mental state while I’ve been here is different. I feel slowed down, like my brain has been wrapped in a duvet. I have literally forgotten what day it is. I feel like I’ve been on this ship for ever and that I’ll be here for ever and all there is is right now, but in a fluffy, giggly, carefree sort of way, rather than in that grim, clenched-jaw, I’m-in-the-moment mindset that seems to riddle so much positive thinking.

  It’s not like I’ve surrendered control, but that it slipped away from me while I was staring, slack-jawed, at yet another too-astonishing landscape.

  At home I find the days far too long. A half-hour can take a shocking amount of time to pass. But time is nothing here. I’d brought lots of box sets to watch, but haven’t got further than Episode 1 of The Good Wife. And I’ve barely read anything, and yet I never f
eel bored and I rarely get the fear where I’m desperate for something to calm me.

  Also, I’ve gone almost feral in my appearance. It’s goodbye to make-up, it’s goodbye to combing my hair, my Gelish nail varnish has peeled off several of my nails and it seems utterly unimportant to do anything with them.

  There is nowhere else like this on earth. Nothing even close.

  Another thing that adds to my cocoon-brain feeling is the loveliness of every single one of the staff. Everyone, from Iris the receptionist to Joseph who always remembers my Sprite Zero, to Marvin the plumber who had to come and fix our jacks, they are all warm and treat me with a generosity of spirit that seems genuine.

  I spend a lot of my life agonizing about economic inequality and worry that people who have to work as hard as these people do must really resent the spoilt, rich Westerners they take care of. But I don’t feel like that here. I feel everyone takes great pride in doing their job excellently and they sincerely want us to have a great time. I feel everyone who works in the dining room is (justifiably) proud of the delicious food and thoughtful service they provide.

  As for the twelve guides, I am humbled by how they have gone out of their way to make sure everyone had a wonderful trip. Also, everything is extremely tightly organized, but there’s never any sense that any of the guides are stressed or tired. They all seem to genuinely love the Antarctic and are passionate about getting the best out of the trip for every single person. Really, I cannot praise them enough.

  7.44 p.m.

  Sideshow Bob hasn’t come down for dinner! Himself says he must have done the Polar Plunge and ‘collapsed’ his hair. Himself says he might have had to take his hair to the medical bay.

  7.59 p.m.

  Sideshow Bob appears in the dining room and his hair looks freshly ‘done’. It is unusually pineappley and sticky-uppy and sway-ey. Himself says that he has obviously been to the medical bay and ‘had a shot’.