The Quality of Silence

  ‘Perhaps you could help me with some facts on Anaktue?’ the reporter asked, her tone neutral. ‘Is Anaktue – was Anaktue – sitting on hundreds of thousands of barrels of shale oil?’

  ‘I really don’t see the relevance of that,’ the Governor replied.

  ‘I’ve seen a geologist’s report,’ the radio reporter continued. ‘The land under Anaktue has three layers of source rock, the rock that generated the huge volumes of oil and gas that migrated to Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk.’

  ‘I am here to offer my condolences to fellow Alaskans, not to talk about geology.’

  ‘Didn’t a number of hydraulic fracturing companies, including Soagil Energy Incorporated, want to frack the land under and around Anaktue?’

  ‘That is wholly irrelevant to this terrible tragedy.’

  ‘Isn’t it true that Soagil Energy wanted to put an initial twenty-two wells within a one and a half mile radius of the village?’

  ‘That has nothing to do with—’

  ‘And when the villagers refused to allow it, Soagil Energy tried to force them?’ the radio interviewer continued.

  ‘No one tried to force them,’ the Governor replied. ‘We supported their decision, one hundred per cent. We have huge respect for Inupiat people living here and we do our utmost to support their way of life. We are not like the rest of the USA corralling first nation peoples into reservations. We respect their right to live and hunt where they have always lived and hunted. We just do what we can to offer support. We were due to install new generators at Anaktue and the villagers were given food coupons as well as unrestricted hunting rights.’

  ‘You are on the board of a hydraulic fracturing company?’

  ‘I resigned my place on the board when I was elected Governor. But I’m proud to have been involved and to still offer support to these companies. Mining companies, including hydraulic fracturing companies, are not villains, but employers. They offer jobs for Alaskans, which includes jobs for Inupiat people. And all resident Alaskans, including the Inupiat, benefit from the mineral wealth of our State through the Alaskan Permanent Fund. We all get an annual dividend from investment earnings of mineral royalties. Energy companies are safeguarding our future. And they are helping to keep the lights on in American homes.’

  ‘That was under a thousand dollars.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘The dividend last year. Nine hundred dollars. Not that much compared to the millions made by the energy companies. You said “we” earlier, Governor. That, and I quote, “we supported their decision, one hundred per cent.” Did you mean you and the government of Alaska or you and the rest of the board of Soagil Energy?’

  ‘As I said, I am no longer on the board. But as I have also said, the mining companies are good for Alaska and for the rest of America.’

  ‘So what happens now, Governor Jenston? Does Soagil Energy get to frack the villagers’ land?’

  ‘I’ve been informed that Soagil Energy are no longer going to pursue an interest in this area. Out of respect to the villagers.’

  ‘And the other fracking companies?’

  ‘I don’t have that information, but I imagine other hydraulic fracturing companies will follow Soagil Energy’s lead on this. Look, if you want to find a villain then you’re looking in the wrong place. The only people who have behaved criminally in the energy business are the so-called eco-warriors. These people have deliberately sabotaged wells and condensate tanks, shot at the pipeline. And, by the way, that one shot resulted in a quarter of a million gallons of crude spewing out of the pipe and threatening an ecological disaster. One day I’ve no doubt they’ll light a fire and try to blame it on hydraulic fracturing, though the truth is hydraulic fracturing hasn’t caused a single fire, not one, even when the pad is right in someone’s backyard, which certainly isn’t the case in Alaska.’

  Mum and Mr Azizi haven’t opened their mouths, so they’re not talking to each other, but Mr Azizi keeps glancing at Mum. She isn’t moving at all. Her whole body is concentrating, like even moving her chin might stop her from hearing whatever it is. I think it’s something to do with Dad. I tug on her arm and she turns to me.

  She doesn’t say anything for a little while and I know she’s thinking about whether to tell me or not and I want her to remember that we’re a team, me and Mum, and she has to tell me.

  After the news there’d been a local weather report; Yasmin had barely heard it.

  ‘There’s been a weather forecast on the radio,’ she told Ruby. ‘There’s going to be a storm; they’re not sure when yet.’

  She hated using Ruby’s deafness to hide the truth from her. She and Matt had never done it, never turned their faces away from her so she couldn’t read their lips. Better for her to lip-read hurtful words or for them to be silent with each other than use her deafness for some kind of advantage. But the forecast storm was the partial truth.

  ‘We’ll get to Dad before the storm, won’t we?’ Ruby asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you told Mr Azizi yet?’ Ruby asked.

  ‘Not yet.’

  Breakfast at the damp, flimsy-walled B & B in Speyside. Russell’s girlfriend had phoned. He’d been sentenced to five years for dealing. Yasmin had swiftly packed, telling Matt not to come too; probably easiest and best if he didn’t.

  But Matt had come anyway. On the swaying train back to London, she’d looked out of the window, the brown rain-puddled fields turning into solid urban greys, and felt the warmth of him next to her.

  He hadn’t been her rock in a conventional way. He hadn’t come with her to visit Russell that time, or the many visits afterwards; nor come with her to the care home to sit with her father. He hadn’t given her advice or pep talks. But he’d wait outside for her, often with a telescope in the car, a bottle of wine in the boot and sleeping bags for the beach. He showed her over and over again that her past didn’t mean a future without happiness.

  Chapter 7

  They were crossing the immense Yukon River, frozen over during winter, the bridge held up by concrete pillars, but in the blackness you couldn’t see the bottom of the drop. Adeeb knew that there were dinosaur footprints along the banks of the Yukon, preserved and fossilised in the mud. He found it easier to imagine prehistoric creatures roaming unseen below them, than any living animals.

  Behind them, the damselfish headlights had fallen a little further back.

  I don’t want Mum to hear something on the radio again or on Mr Azizi’s CB and for me not to know what’s happening till later. So I’m going to use ‘Speech Magic’. That’s what it’s called, like ‘Hey presto! I can hear and speak! Ta-da!’ It’s this programme I have on my laptop that turns someone’s mouth-voice into typed words on my screen. That’s the magic part. And because the screen is lit up it’s my secret weapon to hear even in the dark. Though it’s not always convenient to be carrying a laptop around. And it doesn’t work if there are lots of voices, because it scrambles them all up together. But if there’s just one person you’re OK, so I can just imagine me on a dark night with a boy wanting to whisper lovey-dovey things to me, and I make him wait while I pull my laptop out of my enormous handbag. That’s a joke! I don’t have a handbag, And I don’t have a boyfriend. I AM TEN and I think it’s really silly that people in Year Six have boyfriends or handbags.

  The not-magic part is that it turns my typing into a machine-voice. I like it much more if someone reads my type so I’d only use the machine voice if it was a big emergency. When I got it, I had to choose the voice I wanted, like Mum did when she got her satnav – so your language and then whether you want American or UK English, then man or woman, then young or older (which Mum doesn’t have on her satnav). I knew that boys’ voices get deep when they get older, but I thought girls stayed the same. Dad told me that a young voice sounds clear and a little tinkly, like tapping a metal kettle with a teaspoon. Years make your voice sound heavier, but an old person’s voice sounds fragile and brittle, like it’s made from
very thin china. The Voice-Magic people don’t do a very old voice because they must think nobody wants to sound like a thin piece of china, but I think it might be coolio, if you sound like a Ming vase.

  When I was choosing I thought it would be funny to have my voice as an American man. As it’s not my voice, I thought it would sort of point that out too, but Mum looked really upset when she heard it, which I didn’t mean to do at all. So I changed it to ‘UK English girl’.

  I’ve known Jimmy since we were babies and he learned a lot of sign without even realising he was doing it. Anyway, me and Jimmy, when we were friends, had favourite words, like ‘tortoise’ - weird word. And we’d just say ‘tortoise’ to each other and then we’d laugh so much that Jimmy would fart and we called it fart-funny. One day our word was ‘vacuous’. We spent all day saying everything was vacuous – people, bananas, loo rolls, pencil sharpeners. He said the word ‘vacuous’ came from the inside of a vacuum cleaner, which is full of bits of fluff. I knew from Mum that it was because of the word ‘vacuum’, meaning nothing there at all so sucking everything in, but I liked Jimmy’s fluff-bag more. That was the same week I chose the UK English girl voice and Jimmy who was the ONLY person I let listen to it, apart from Mum and Dad, said the girl sounded vacuous. So whenever I use this machine I know I sound like a fluffy vacuum bag.

  But I want to thank Mr Azizi for taking us, and I can’t ask Mum to tell him for me because she’d say ‘USE YOUR WORDS, RUBY,’ meaning my mouth and that’s even worse than using the Voice Magic voice. And – this is the big emergency part – I want to ask him to take us all the way to Deadhorse. I’m sure that he’ll say yes and then Mum won’t look so worried.

  When Anaktue was on the radio news, Adeeb had felt Yasmin’s tension in the confines of the cab. He didn’t think it likely that she was a relative or friend of a villager, but the British wildlife film-maker would make sense of things. He’d seen two wedding rings on her finger at the beginning of the journey and assumed that her husband was dead. He didn’t know where Anaktue was, but thought it must be near the Arctic Circle. Maybe she and Ruby were on a kind of pilgrimage to see the place where he died.

  He heard a strange electronic voice – ‘Thank you for taking us.’ He glanced across at Ruby and saw that she was typing

  ‘I’m very glad I did,’ he said carefully and saw his words appearing on her screen in type.

  ‘And thank you for linking up your satellite receiver to my laptop.’

  He should learn sign language. The whole world should learn. There would be no foreign accent marking you as different and if you wanted to block out abuse you could just turn away or shut your eyes. And if everyone could sign, if he could, then this great little girl wouldn’t have some strange voice speaking for her but her own hands instead. Although he wouldn’t be able to watch her sign or sign back and drive at the same time.

  ‘It means Daddy can email me,’ the electronic voice said and he saw Ruby smiling at him hard.

  So her father must be alive and his guess about him being the British film-maker must be wrong. But Yasmin and Ruby were signing to each other and the anxiety in both of them was clear and Ruby was looking increasingly distressed.

  The radio was playing classical music again. He tapped his finger on the steering wheel along to the music as a signal that he hadn’t noticed their silent argument. After about ten bars, their signed conversation finished and Ruby looked unhappy and Yasmin more anxious. She also looked exhausted.

  ‘Do you want to sleep a while?’ he asked her. ‘This stretch of road is not too bad and I’ll wake you when we get near the cafeteria stop.’

  A look between mother and child, though they didn’t sign anything to one another.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. He was pretty sure she closed her eyes so he couldn’t ask her any questions.

  ‘Shall I tell you something interesting about Alaska?’ he asked Ruby, his words coming up on her screen in type.

  ‘Yes,’ he heard back, in that peculiar voice.

  ‘The Russians sold Alaska to the Americans.’

  ‘How much did it cost?

  ‘Seven dollars and twenty-two cents an acre.’

  ‘That’s not very much.’

  ‘No.’

  Don’t give them a history lesson every dinner, Visha said to him, pleading. But the boys wanted him to; surely they weren’t yet old enough yet to be humouring him.

  ‘I think the Dalton Highway is a dull name for this road, don’t you?’ he said. ‘When you think about what they could have called it.’

  ‘Ghost Train Road?’ she said.

  ‘Ghost Train, Roller-coaster Road?’

  ‘Ghost Train, Roller-coaster, Ice-rink Road.’

  ‘Exactly. So many very good names, but they called it after a man called James Dalton. And do you know what he did?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He put spy satellites all the way around the Arctic Circle, so America would know if someone was invading. Probably the Russians, hoping to get their land back, I expect.’

  She smiled and he was glad. But he wondered if that was why northern Alaska felt hostile to him. It wasn’t just the unholy cold and bleakness and darkness, this place was a frontier where people didn’t circle their wagons but their spy satellites. The Governor had spoken about eco-terrorists, though Adeeb knew that the man who shot the pipeline was a regular drunken criminal, nothing more. But they were afraid of the usual type of terrorist attack too, by people who probably looked a lot like him. He’d heard there were plans to set up checkpoints along the Dalton Highway and a special anti-terrorist task force, to safeguard one of America’s most valuable infrastructures. What would they make of him, an Afghan refugee, at one of their checkpoints? The only thing he’d ever blown up was a balloon, but would they trust him on that? He’d already learned not to go out and about with a backpack or wearing a puffy jacket.

  ‘Do you know why the pipe’s really high like that?’ Ruby asked him on her machine. Running along next to them, the pipeline was raised high up on stilts. He saw her smile and knew she was enjoying the role of quizmaster with the answer in her pocket; his boys were the same.

  ‘No, I don’t. Do you?’

  ‘It’s so caribou can go underneath,’ she said, ‘when they migrate, so they can

  use the same path they always have for thousands of years.’

  No spy satellites or checkpoints for caribou, Adeeb thought.

  ‘But Dad says that fracking can make some birds migrate the wrong way and they get lost. No one knows really why that happens yet.’

  ‘That’s very sad.’

  ‘Yes.’

  She stared out of the window, her huge green eyes just visible from the little light in the cab; as if she was entranced.

  ‘It’s amazing out there, isn’t it?’ she said.

  If he hadn’t seen her eyes he would have thought she was joking.

  ‘Truthfully, I’m not that keen on it,’ he said. If it were up to him he’d give it back to the Russians for nothing.

  ‘There aren’t enough colours for me here,’ he continued. ‘You know when I was listening to Chopin earlier?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It helps me to imagine I’m somewhere else.’

  ‘With blossom?’

  ‘Yes. And other places too.’ He’d been training himself to find beautiful images in his new home of Oregon. ‘On sunny days we go to the park and there are oak trees, not like the short little trees out here, but giants. When the sun goes down in the summer the top leaves go from green to yellow, like they’re turning to gold.’

  Mum said I can’t tell Mr Azizi where we really want to go. She promised me she’d tell him herself, soon. So I’ll tell him about my trees, as he’s told me about his.

  ‘In the summer,’ I say on Voice Magic, ‘it’s still light outside when I go to bed. There’s these trees outside my window. I don’t know what kind, but they’re really high and their branches touch each other. You can
’t see their trunks and you can’t see their tops, just the middles. All these branches are covered with leaves. Sometimes I imagine it’s not air between their branches but water and I’m swimming through them, twisting and sliding through sunny passages of leaves.’

  I’ve never told anyone about tree-swimming before, but he told me about his oak trees and I think it might be the same kind of feeling. And it’s nice to think of them, our summery green trees, because it’s really weird being in darkness all the time.

  There’s new words on my screen: ‘What is your favourite music?’

  No one has EVER asked me that question. Like it would be the stupidest question in the world. Maybe he means drum music, or the glockenspiel.

  ‘Rachmaninov’s second piano concerto,’ I say. ‘Brahms and the Beatles.’

  Voice Magic recognises the names because I’ve said them before, but just to me not anyone else.

  Mr Azizi nods. Like he’s not one bit surprised.

  ‘How about getting some sleep?’ he asks me. ‘You look tired out.’

  I really, really want to go to sleep. Like sleep is right behind me about to kidnap me by putting a big heavy blanket over my head and dragging me off.

  ‘I’ll take care of your mum for you,’ he says; so I nod and close my eyes, but I’m too jumpy to sleep, even though I’m being kidnapped with a heavy blanket. So I think of Brahms’ first symphony because sometimes it helps.

  Mrs Branebury, the teacher who organised the harp concert, got me into him. We had a lesson just the two of us last term. She said she’d been learning some very basic sign language, so I didn’t need to have a special assistant with me, which I really like as it’s funny having two grown-ups to only one of me. Mrs Branebury must have worked really hard at her signing. She wrote lots of things down, but she did a lot of signing too.

  She said she could tell I didn’t really like percussion instruments and that air-glockenspiel was (and she wrote this bit) ‘entertaining but not a good long-term musical option’. And then she told me that music isn’t all about rhythm, in case I was worried about that? Which I was. She said it was about cadence and melody and harmonies and high notes and low ones. She said there were pictures and stories in the music and that everyone could imagine their own. She said she’d give me her picture story about Brahms’s first symphony and then I could see if I’d like to give mine. She said it’s a majestic piece of music so she sees mountains with lots of thunder and lightning going on, beautiful and awe-inspiring. Did I want to have a go?