Free Call of the White by Felicity Aston Page A

monkey with a bright pink face sat, at head height, on the balcony a few metres away. As I stared at it, it turned its head slowly to look at me. We stared at each other for a few seconds before the monkey looked back out at the rain. I did the same and we sat there in silent company. After a long while I remembered how tired I was and went back to my room, leaving the monkey to his thoughts.
    The night before I left Delhi the Commander had invited me to his house for dinner with him and his wife, Namita. He answered the door wearing a T-shirt from the research station at the South Pole. He was more relaxed than the last time we had met; all trace of formality had disappeared and been replaced by irresistible charm. We sat down to a home cooked meal of paneer and spicy vegetables in a room hung with posters of past expeditions and dominated by an elaborate trophy from the navy that commemorated the Commander’s South Pole expedition. I felt an instant fondness for the Commander and his wife and after a wonderful evening in easy company I was extremely touched to be presented with a copy of the Commander’s book about his Everest expedition with an inscription inside: ‘From below one can’t see what’s above. From above one can see what’s below... That’s why I climb. From really high places and frozen landscapes, here’s to you.’
    I held the book close as I left. This expedition was my own mountain to climb and it felt like I was currently right on its bottom slopes. The Commander had given me a timely reminder of why I was doing all of this and that the view from the top of my own personal mountain would be worth it when I got there.

Chapter Three
    Pet Gibbon
    Singapore
    After the sensory overload of India, Singapore was a vision of heavenly calm. I glided through a silent, glimmering and empty airport, a cathedral-like space in glass and chrome, and floated through queue-less passport control, pausing to fill in an immigration card at a conveniently placed desk with pens ready to be used. From passport control I was handed a trolley by an airport worker as my bags rolled out, immediately, onto a baggage carousel. As I passed through customs a sign pointed me to a desk where a smiling attendant sold me a ticket for a shuttle bus that was ready and waiting outside, with a driver who helped me with my bags and looked after them while I bought myself a coffee. We set off in the bus towards the city. I was the only passenger.
    The early morning sun shone through the window as I sipped my coffee and looked out at highways bordered with flowering rhododendrons. The greenery was gradually replaced by tightly packed tower blocks until we arrived at the YMCA in the city centre. I met Sandra from the British Council in the lobby. She was a petite lady with dark, loose-fitting clothes and a neatly-pinned hijab. We had corresponded by email intensely in the lead-up to my journey; as well as organising a venue for the interviews, she had arranged for me to give several talks during my short stay in Singapore. It seemed that Sandra had accepted the British Council’s aim to engage the young people of Singapore in the climate change debate as a personal mission and she attacked the challenge with enviable energy and efficiency. We both agreed that any excitement about the expedition could be used as a starting point to generate a wider interest in Antarctica within the context of global climate change.
    We walked across the quiet roads to a nearby cafe where I tucked into a tuna baguette and a tall latte. Sandra wasn’t eating because she said she was planning a big meal later but halfway through our meeting I realised that she was fasting. I had completely forgotten that it was Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting. Sandra wouldn’t have eaten anything since daybreak, not even so much as a sip of water. In the intense humidity of Singapore I couldn’t imagine how difficult it must