We stop to admire a street mime, a statue, Captain Cook caked in grey make-up. Nothing moves except his pink eyes. Children compete, watch for him to sway, but he is resolute. Enchanted, they miss his blink when stooping to drop coins in his sea chest with care. He might imagine a looming white continent as, almost indiscernibly, he starts to lift his telescope through cold air.
I picture his ship-rigged sloop-of-war reaching the Antarctic Circle in that shadowy paleness that is night, wind’s vibration creating atonic music whipping across an ice shelf, wooden superstructure lantern-lit, icicles glimmering golden, the cold, the cold, stabbing Cook’s mariners to the bone, floes passing, glassy. Since fog separated them from Discovery they have ventured alone.
One major collision with a ghostly shape and the light would leave their eyes within minutes of this water’s enclosing fold. Cook’s self-financed brass door fittings in the great cabin would be of no use then. There are no flares, no life preservers, nor radio for a Mayday call, no winner’s cheque, tabloid story.
These voyagers pass into history seen and heard by no-one but each other on the way to their own slow oblivion, charting the unknown austral vastness bravely, singing chanteys to an old concertina’s wheeze, husky notes sighing towards the stars as the Earth continues to turn, that silent whirring in the pure cold.
A girl spots movement, loudly imparts this knowledge. The gathering crowd laughs, so our captain gives her his slow wink, hopes a lout who arrives with mates moves on, though persistent comedians manqué, and drunks who want to touch, are the worst he gets. Through his raised glass he sees a tram swirling dust, prays not to sneeze.
