Clade Read online

  This sense of shared isolation bound them together to some extent, but within it they had never been further apart. Absorbed by new commissions and teaching, Ellie retreated ever further into her work, and Adam spent longer and longer hours at the university, or travelling to conferences and meetings.

  Meanwhile Adam found himself searching for new reasons to resist. Unlike some of his colleagues he had never succumbed to despair over the changing climate, preferring to believe that, faced with looming disaster, politicians and business leaders would be forced to look for solutions. But as the situation grew ever more urgent he found himself increasingly alarmed about what was to come. Each week there seemed to be new evidence that the process was hastening. In the Arctic the permafrost was melting; in Greenland and Antarctica the ice sheets were destabilising, their deterioration outpacing even the most pessimistic models; in the Atlantic the currents were growing more erratic, slowing down and shifting. Even the oceans themselves seemed to be dying, their waters more acidic by the month.

  One day in his office he reviewed a new study about the release of methane from the ocean floor and saw, more starkly than ever before, the conundrum the world faced. It wasn’t simply that they needed to consume less, to bring humanity’s impact on the biosphere under control, it was that there were just too many people, and even allowing for technological change and economic restructuring, the planet was on a collision course with disaster. In the United States and India floods covered millions of square kilometres, in Africa and Europe the heat was growing ever more intense, in Indonesia and Brazil and Malaysia the forests were burning, yet he and Ellie were trying to have a baby. What sort of world would that child inherit? Were they really doing the right thing by bringing another life into it?

  That night at home they argued, not about these questions, nor even the treatment, but over money and family, Adam needling Ellie over her refusal to try to get along with her father’s new wife, knowing as he did that he was provoking her, that she felt betrayed by him not taking her side. But even as they rehearsed their irritation with each other he could not get the equations he had scribbled down out of his head, could not let go of the fact that bringing one more mouth into the world was merely adding to a problem that was already out of control. One of his colleagues sometimes talked about the deep structures of intelligence, the way in which human brains had been shaped by evolution. ‘We don’t change because we don’t believe in the problem,’ he would say, ‘at least not at the deep, intuitive level we need to. We can see it when it’s in front of us, see what it means; we know we have to change. But as soon as we’re away from it our old thinking reasserts itself, our desire to reproduce, to build power.’

  In the past some semblance of ease had always reasserted itself following an argument, but after that night they seemed unable to find a new equilibrium. And so when Adam was offered the chance to be part of an expedition to the Antarctic he took it immediately, looking forward to the opportunity to lose himself in something new.

  The project he is attached to is attempting to develop a better understanding of the continent’s climate during previous periods of warming, using fossilised plants and traces of ancient pollen to chart the transformation of the landscape, its transition from rainforest to tundra and finally the barrenness that now surrounds him. And while for the most part the work of gathering samples of sediment and rock has been routine, the experience has been anything but. Travelling south he watched the temperate seas give way to the heaving swells of the Southern Ocean, the water growing darker, denser, heavier, before it changed again, the massive swells replaced first by icebergs and then by fields of drifting ice, their surfaces sculpted by wind and waves, until at last the dark bluffs and gleaming snow of the continent itself hove into view.

  The nature of their work means the occasions when he and his fellow scientists are able to articulate the effect of the place upon them are few, but he knows he is not the only one who feels themselves altered by it, or that their work here is bringing them close to something pure, something normally obscured. On a noticeboard someone has pinned a piece of paper bearing the words ‘the emptier the land, the more luminous and precise the names for its features’, and although he is not sure where the line comes from he recognises it in some deep way, for it captures his feeling he is in a place of the infinite, a place that exists without reference to the human, or indeed to any notion beyond the great wheel of the seasons, the ceaseless motion of the ice. Walking alone along the headland by the base, where orcas can sometimes be seeing playing offshore, their piebald bodies bobbing up and down like the horses on a fairground ride, or around the edge of the bay where the only sound is that of the skuas and the wind, it is possible to feel his anger and unhappiness wash away.

  The others feel the same, he is certain of it. It is visible in the way they suddenly grin and laugh, as if alive in a way they haven’t been before. But he also knows they share the urgency of what they do, that beneath their banter lies an awareness that they are at the end of something. This year the ice has retreated further than ever, exposing rock and stone buried for millions of years. To the east and west the glaciers are flowing faster and faster, calving bergs half the size of cities day after day, a process of transformation so vast it is difficult to comprehend.

  Indeed, sometimes it seems the entire continent is moving around them. Just over a week ago he flew out with a team assigned to take samples from the shelf to the west of the station. It was a long flight, three hours tracking out across the whiteness, yet for the most part it passed in silence, Adam and the others absorbed in the landscape passing beneath them.

  When they landed at their destination Adam was the first one out, clambering down quickly, his head bent low to avoid the rotors, the thunderous whine of the turbines. But as the roar of the engine faded it was replaced by another sound, a deep, geological creaking and groaning that rose and fell and echoed to the horizon.

  Turning back to the helicopter, Adam saw that the others heard it too, that he was not imagining it. And he understood what it was, that the sound was the ice shifting beneath them as the entire landscape on which they stood slipped and fell towards the sea.

  That night he hardly slept, the implications of what he had heard chasing through his mind. He knew he should have been terrified, or in despair, yet instead he felt a kind of elation, as if he had been freed somehow.

  The next morning he rose early, hoping to catch Ellie before work, excited by his returned desire for her, his sense that they were not wrong to be doing this thing. But when he phoned she was already at the clinic for her hormone shots, unable to talk. ‘I’ll call you,’ she said, ‘when I get the result.’

  And so, a week later, he is here, waiting. To the north the sun is growing slowly, imperceptibly lower, the apogee of its long transit across the sky finally past, its long progress downward begun. But although winter is approaching, it will not be forever, and in its wake summer will come again, and again, each warmer than the last, each bringing with it the promise of change, of loss. They will have the child, or not, he thinks, and the world will go on, and they will go on, and he will love her and they will see where tomorrow takes them. For what else is there to do, except hang on, and hope?

  Overhead the sun shines, white and weakly warm against his face; to the south the ice is moving, to the north the sea spreads out into the future.

  And in his hand the phone begins to ring.

  He wakes to heat, the seeping light of the sun against the blinds. On his nightstand the clock reads 5:42. He feels confused, unanchored in time.

  Sitting up he looks around. Although the other half of the bed is empty, he does not remember Ellie getting up, does not remember anything beyond the usual nocturnal confusion of broken sleep and unsettled dreams.

  Out in the hall he makes his way towards the kitchen, listening for the sound of Ellie’s voice as he steps around the clothes and toys left scattered and abandoned the day before.
When he opens the door Summer is seated at the table, cup of juice in one hand. Seeing him she grins, shouts, ‘Daddy!’

  Leaning down he kisses her on the head, then turns to Ellie. ‘How long have you been up?’

  She looks drawn, the skin beneath her eyes bruised. ‘A while.’

  He pulls the fridge open and the seal gives a flat, deflated sound. ‘Power off again?’

  ‘Since midnight.’

  Pouring himself a glass of juice he sits down, lifts Summer onto his lap and takes an experimental sip. ‘The food will be spoiled.’

  Ellie shoots him a barbed look. ‘Really? That hadn’t occurred to me.’

  He puts down his glass. They have had to empty and restock the fridge half a dozen times in the past month alone.

  ‘Sorry,’ Ellie sighs, lifting a hand.

  ‘Don’t worry about it. Any word on when it will be back on?’

  She shakes her head. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘I’ll check the updates,’ Adam says, taking out his phone.

  ‘Didn’t I just say there wasn’t anything?’ she says, the edge in her tone enough to make both of them fall still.

  For a few seconds they sit staring at each other. Then Ellie turns away.

  ‘Do you want to go back to bed?’ he asks.

  ‘I won’t sleep.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Maybe when the power comes back on.’

  On his knee Summer is wriggling about, grabbing at his face. Giving her his hand he lets her grab his finger instead, opening his mouth in a playful mockery of pain.

  It is the third power cut this week, the tenth or eleventh since the beginning of the month. For the past few summers there have been intermittent outages caused by the ever-increasing demand for air-conditioning, but the fires of recent months have damaged the lines, making brownouts and outright power failures common.

  On the other side of the table Ellie begins clearing the remains of breakfast. Adam looks up.

  ‘I’ll do that.’

  ‘It’s fine. I’ve got it.’

  ‘Really,’ he says, setting Summer down and standing. ‘I’m happy to.’

  ‘I said I’m fine.’

  Summer looks startled by Ellie’s tone. Adam doesn’t move. Finally he backs away. ‘I should have a shower,’ he says. ‘I’ve got work to do.’

  In the half-light of the bathroom he lets the cool water wash over him, playing the exchange with Ellie back over, and again. Sometimes it frightens him, the way conversations loop and repeat in his mind, increasing his sense of grievance with every repetition, and today is no exception. It is no secret to either of them that Ellie is struggling, but despite talking about it numerous times, she refuses to get help.

  As he dries himself he tries to put the scene in the kitchen out of his mind and concentrate on work. Since his return from Antarctica Adam’s research group have been attached to an international project that is attempting to model the changes to the South Asian monsoon. For the best part of two decades scientists have been worried about its growing unpredictability, and last year their worst fears were realised. The rains that usually arrived in July or August failed to appear, leaving the subcontinent to bake in record heat. Crops failed, leading to food shortages and starvation. Then in November torrential rain and massive floods killed more than a million and left another hundred million homeless. And finally, in the aftermath, the economy collapsed, leading to the widespread unemployment that is behind the riots in Mumbai and Calcutta in recent weeks.

  Adam still finds the scale of the disaster difficult to comprehend. Yet with each passing week it seems more likely this year will be worse: although it is only March, temperatures in the Indian Ocean have already surpassed the records set last year, and the heat is building rapidly on the land. For the members of the team in New Delhi this lends the project a powerful, even frightening urgency, an urgency Adam finds it increasingly difficult not to share.

  Once he is dressed he opens his computer, scans the emails that crowd his inbox. Because his colleagues are separated by half a dozen time zones, every morning brings new material to work on, and before long Adam is so absorbed in reading the latest reports he doesn’t hear Ellie until she appears at the door, her face ashen.

  ‘What is it?’ he asks, getting to his feet.

  ‘It’s Summer, she’s having an asthma attack.’

  ‘Her puffer isn’t helping?’

  ‘Not enough. I think we need to get her to hospital.’

  Following Ellie down the hall, Adam finds Summer lying on the couch, her back arched, eyes half closed. Slipping an arm under her he scoops her up.

  ‘You grab her things,’ he says to Ellie. ‘I’ll get her out to the car.’

  Although it is still early the traffic is heavy, cars banked up in long lines where the lights have failed. Forcing himself to stay calm, he tries to concentrate on the road ahead, but every time he glances in the mirror Ellie is staring at him.

  At the hospital he pulls up outside Emergency. ‘You get her inside,’ he says. ‘I’ll go park the car.’

  A few minutes later he is back. The waiting room is crowded, people slumped in the plastic seats that line the space, fanning themselves with bits of paper and staring at their phones or the televisions overhead. Ellie is by the triage desk, Summer in her arms. He hurries towards her, arriving in time to see the nurse behind the perspex window lean forward and gesture to the security door on the right, which stands propped open with a chair in the absence of power.

  The corridor beyond the door is dim, the emergency lights giving the space an almost submarine hue. As they enter, a nurse appears from one of the rooms on the left.

  ‘Asthma?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes,’ Ellie says, falling into the formal yet slightly deferential tone she tends to assume around figures of authority.

  ‘Has she had episodes like this before?’

  Adam and Ellie exchange glances. ‘Never this bad,’ Adam says, speaking for them both.

  The nurse motions to a pair of plastic chairs by the wall. ‘Take a seat over there and I’ll get the doctor,’ he says.

  They sit down as directed. Summer’s breath comes in shallow gasps and the skin around her mouth is blue. Pressing her lips to Summer’s hair, Ellie strokes her arm with her free hand.

  ‘It’s okay, sweetie,’ she says, ‘the doctor will be here soon. As she speaks she leans forward, rocking gently in her seat, her face intent.

  Adam considers reaching out, drawing her to him, but he knows this look well enough to know she does not want him to, that even if she acceded to his touch it would be stiffly, unnaturally.

  A moment later the nurse reappears, the doctor behind him. Handing the screen she holds to the nurse, the doctor kneels down in front of them.

  ‘This is Summer?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes,’ Ellie says.

  ‘How long has she been like this?’

  ‘An hour or so.’

  ‘Hi, Summer,’ the doctor says. ‘I’m just going to have a look at your chest, okay?’

  When she doesn’t get a reply she pulls the child’s T-shirt up. Summer’s chest and abdomen are bulging and expanding, the skin straining against her ribs with the effort of breathing.

  ‘She’s had Ventolin already?’

  ‘Yes,’ Ellie say, ‘but it doesn’t seem to have helped.’

  The doctor gives a quick nod, then stands up. ‘Okay,’ she says in a quick, clipped voice. ‘We need to get her connected to a monitor. Then we’ll give her medication to open up her airways.’

  They carry her to a bed in one of the alcoves and stand back while the nurse attaches a monitor to Summer’s finger and presses a pair of cannulas into her nose, murmuring comfortingly when she flinches. Then, with one eye on the monitor, he and the doctor prepare an inhaler and administer a spray, waiting for a few seconds before coaxing her to swallow a thick syrup, a process that makes Summer cough and gag several times before she succeeds, the sticky pink liqu
id spilling out and coating her chin and neck. In the silence after the coughing stops the doctor explains that the nurse will be back in a few minutes to check on them.

  ‘Will she be okay?’ Ellie asks, getting to her feet.

  ‘I hope so,’ the doctor says. ‘But we won’t know for a while.’

  Left alone the two of them barely speak, just watch and wait. Seated on the bed beside Summer, Ellie strokes her daughter’s hair, her whole attention focused on the act, as if it might be possible to fix her by sheer force of will.

  Although it continues to come in shallow gasps, over the next half an hour or so Summer’s breathing grows easier, until almost without warning she opens her eyes.

  For a moment Adam thinks he will weep, his relief is so intense. Leaning forward he touches Summer’s arm, while Ellie kisses her forehead.

  ‘Hey sweetie,’ she says, her voice cracking.

  There is talk of keeping her overnight, but the hospital is crowded, its capacity stretched to the limit, so just after seven they are released with new puffers and instructions to return if there are further difficulties.

  By the time they get home it is almost eight. When they open the door the house is hot, the air thick with the stink of rotting food. Adam flicks a switch and the hall fills with light.

  ‘Power’s back at least,’ he says. ‘Let me get the garbage outside; we can deal with the fridge once Summer’s in bed.’

  While he loads the bin he listens to Ellie getting Summer into her nightie. Usually she resists bedtime, seeking to delay the day’s end as long as possible, but tonight she is asleep almost as soon as she lies down.

  Back in the living room he flicks the television on. As it has been for weeks, the news is about the power cuts and the climate negotiations in Bangkok, which have reached an impasse yet again. The report from Thailand is followed by items about unexplained fish deaths in Tasmania and Victoria, and yet another story about the sudden bird die-offs in the west. But a moment later the images of dead birds are replaced by an interview with a newspaper columnist who has just published a book arguing that the evidence for the planet’s warming is flawed, that in fact it is entering a phase of rapid cooling. Adam watches with fury boiling up in him at the man’s bland reasonableness, his polished deceit.