It took two hours to get back to the tiny port at Longyearbyen. It was Norway’s – and the world’s – most northern town, with a population of around two thousand people.
Nora knew these basic things from her root life. She had, after all, been fascinated by this part of the world since she was eleven, but her knowledge didn’t stretch far beyond the magazine articles she had read and she was still nervous of talking.
But the boat trip back had been okay, because her inability to discuss the rock and ice and plant samples they had taken, or to understand phrases such as ‘striated basalt bedrock’ and ‘post-glacial isotopes’, was put down to the shock of her polar bear encounter.
And she was in a kind of shock, it was true. But it was not the shock her colleagues were imagining. The shock hadn’t been that she’d thought she’d been about to die. She had been about to die ever since she first entered the Midnight Library. No, the shock was that she felt like she was about to live. Or at least, that she could imagine wanting to be alive again. And she wanted to do something good with that life.
The life of a human, according to the Scottish philosopher David Hume, was of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster.
But if it was important enough for David Hume to write that thought down, then maybe it was important enough to aim to do something good. To help preserve life, in all its forms.
As Nora understood it, the work this other Nora and her fellow scientists had been doing was something to do with determining the speed at which the ice and glaciers had been melting in the region, to gauge the acceleration rate of climate change. There was more to it than that, but that was at the core of it, as far as Nora could see.
So, in this life, she was doing her bit to save the planet. Or at least to monitor the steady devastation of the planet in order to alert people to the facts of environmental crisis. That was potentially depressing but also a good and ultimately fulfilling thing to do, she imagined. There was purpose. There was meaning.
They were impressed too. The others. With the polar bear story. Nora was a hero of sorts – not in an Olympic-swimming-champion way, but in another equally fulfilling kind of fashion.
Ingrid had her arm around her. ‘You are the saucepan warrior. And I think we need to mark your fearlessness, and our potentially groundbreaking findings, with a meal. A nice meal. And some vodka. What do you say, Peter?’
‘A nice meal? In Longyearbyen? Do they have them?’
As it turned out: they did.
Back on dry land they went to a smart wooden shack of a place called Gruvelageret perched off a lonely road in an austere, snow-crisp valley. She drank Arctic ale and surprised her colleagues by eating the only vegan option on a menu that included reindeer steak and moose burger. Nora must have looked tired because quite a few of her colleagues told her that she did, but maybe it was just that there weren’t many places in the conversation that she could enter with confidence. She felt like a learner driver at a busy junction, nervously waiting for a clear and safe patch of road.
Hugo was there. He still looked to her like he would rather be in Antibes or St Tropez. She felt a little uneasy as he stared at her, a little too observed.
On the hurried walk back to their land-based accommodation, which reminded Nora of a university halls of residence but on a smaller scale and more Nordic and wooden and minimal, Hugo jogged to catch her up and walk by her side.
‘It is interesting,’ he said.
‘What is interesting?’
‘How at breakfast this morning you didn’t know who I was.’
‘Why? You didn’t know who I was either.’
‘Of course I did. We were chatting for about two hours yesterday.’
Nora felt like she was inside some kind of trap. ‘We were?’
‘I studied you at breakfast before I came over and I could see you were different today.’
‘That’s creepy, Hugo. Studying women at breakfast.’
‘And I noticed things.’
Nora lifted her scarf over her face. ‘It’s too cold. Can we talk about this tomorrow?’
‘I noticed you improvising. All day you have been non-committal in everything you say.’
‘Not true. I’m just shook up. You know, the bear.’
‘Non. Ce n’est pas ça. I’m talking about before the bear. And after the bear. And all day.’
‘I have no idea what you’re—’
‘There is a look. I have seen it before in other people. I’d recognise it anywhere.’
‘I have no idea what you are talking about.’
‘Why do glaciers pulsate?’
‘What?’
‘This is your area of study. It’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’
‘The science isn’t entirely settled on the matter.’
‘Okay. Bien. Name me one of the glaciers around here. Glaciers have names. Name one . . . Kongsbreen? Nathorstbreen? Ring any bells?’
‘I don’t want this conversation.’
‘Because you aren’t the same person you were yesterday, are you?’
‘None of us are,’ said Nora, briskly. ‘Our brains change. It’s called neuroplasticity. Please. Stop mansplaining glaciers to a glaciologist, Hugo.’
Hugo seemed to retreat a little and she felt a bit guilty. There was a minute of silence. Just the crunch of their feet in the snow. They were nearly back at the accommodation, the others not too far behind them.
But then, he said it.
‘I am like you, Nora. I visit lives that aren’t mine. I have been in this one for five days. But I have been in many others. I was given an opportunity – a rare opportunity – for this to happen. I have been sliding between lives for a long while.’
Ingrid grabbed Nora’s arm.
‘I still have some vodka,’ she announced as they reached the door. She held her key card in her glove and tapped it against the scanner. The door opened.
‘Listen,’ Hugo mumbled, conspiratorially, ‘if you want to know more, meet me in the communal kitchen in five minutes.’
And Nora felt her heart race, but this time she had no ladle or saucepan to bang. She didn’t particularly like this Hugo character, but was far too intrigued not to hear what he had to say. And she also wanted to know if he could be trusted.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’ll be there.’
