“There are three types of people in this world, Very. (He called me Very.) There are those who make the world worse, those who make no difference and those who make the world better. Be one who makes the world better, if you can.”

Veronica is recalling a piece of advice given by her father decades earlier. As a woman in her eighties, Veronica follows this advice by picking up trash on the beach, thinking that this is the only way she can make the world better. She doesn’t yet realize the impact she will soon have on the ecosystem.

“She looks me up and down. Me: spliff in hand, ripped jeans, crumpled T-shirt, hair a mess, face unshaven and my whole body reeking like a pig shed. Her: all dressed up smart in a starchy jacket and pleated skirt. Not quite twinset and pearls, but almost.”

Patrick is offering his first impression of Veronica. She is starched disapproval. In contrast, he is disheveled, and he knows it. Veronica has taken him by surprise with her early visit. She did this deliberately to discover what sort of person her grandson was. Both parties are displeased by what they find.

“I see now that this whole thing has been a mistake of colossal proportions. The history is too complex, the distance too wide. Patrick is what he is. I am what I am. We are very different animals.”

Veronica makes this observation right after her first meeting with Patrick. Her snap judgment is based on a lifetime of disappointments. She would rather cut him out of her life than be hurt again. Ironically, her assessment that they are different animals is wrong. At the core, they have both suffered and survived heartaches.

“They’ve got this different take on things because they’ve been through so much. They’re not just full of wrinkles, they’re full of…stories. And so often we don’t bother to appreciate them till they’re gone.”

Gavin gives this word of advice to Patrick after the latter echoes Veronica’s sentiments that they don’t have anything in common. Gavin’s specific reference to old peoples’ stories will have relevance later in the novel once Patrick delves into Veronica’s diaries.

“These aren’t pretty illustrations in a book but real living creatures, spectacularly three-dimensional and unashamedly physical. Here they are, bold and bright, getting on with life in a big, bustling community. Messy, noisy, reckless, pulsing with life and energy.”

Veronica has just had her first real encounter with penguins on Locket Island. They initially attracted her through a television program that fails to capture the smells and sounds of nature, no matter how offensive. Fortunately, she isn’t put off by the reality. She stresses the word “community” in describing penguin activities. This term will come up again later in the novel when she bemoans her isolation by comparison.

“I do like people, I like them very much. I just can’t cope with them in huge quantities. I’m so aware of all those emotions, all those plans and dreams and longings. All those agendas. It’s like this massive overload to my system.”

Terry is explaining to Veronica why she prefers living so far from civilization. While both the old woman and the young woman want to keep their distance from humanity, they do so for completely different reasons. Veronica cares too little about others, while Terry cares too much.

“You can’t ever have too many penguins. They’ve got a different sort of energy to humans. It’s more fundamental and earthy. They don’t agonize over things. They don’t have issues.”

This statement by Terry encapsulates the charm of the penguins for everyone who spends time in their company. Terry likes them because she doesn’t have to worry about psychic overload from their internal dramas. Veronica likes them because they don’t remind her of annoying humans.

“When I saw Granny at the airport, I wasn’t thinking of me-me-me quite so much, and I got this weird feeling, as if the first time we’d met I’d been missing something. Like her harshness was a kind of coat she wrapped tightly round herself so nobody could see what was underneath.”

Patrick is carrying on an internal monologue after having seen a photo of Veronica among the penguins in which she is actually smiling. He compares this version of her to the one he encountered earlier and begins to notice details that he missed before. Unlike his grandmother, Patrick is aware of his self-absorption and rebukes himself for it. Veronica is still too self-involved to consider how defensive she appears to be.

“I am not accustomed to delving into what causes other people to behave badly. If truth be told, I am not accustomed to considering other people very much at all. In my experience, it usually leads to inconvenience and aggravation.”

Veronica has just been complaining about Patrick’s marijuana use, but Terry points out that he may be dealing with issues of his own. It has never occurred to Veronica to consider the context of her grandson’s behavior. While this quote might suggest that she doesn’t care at all, she immediately sends Patrick the code to her memento box, revealing that Terry’s words have had an impact.

“‘Don’t you find that, as the years pass, you become less obsessed with yourself—and you care about other people more? As you get older it’s as if your capacity for love grows.’ I am silent. I have not found this to be the case at all. Quite the reverse.”

Dietrich has just told Veronica that he’s worried about Terry being alone in the world. His emotional generosity contrasts with Veronica’s self-involvement. In this quote and in the preceding one, Veronica is being exposed to viewpoints that differ from her own. They give her food for thought and a chance to contrast her own self-absorbed behavior with Terry’s and Dietrich’s empathy.

“I would have thought that by now I’d have shaken off the past, but ever since I read those old journals, I have been acutely aware of it all. It’s still there inside me, stronger than ever, a growing presence like a canker. It is expanding all the time.”

Veronica has just returned from witnessing a chick being torn apart by a hungry skua. She associates this horror with her own emotional losses, and the past comes rushing back. Even though Terry encourages her to talk about her sadness, Veronica cuts the conversation short. Her solution to dealing with pain is to bury it. This quote suggests she is beginning to realize the futility of that strategy.

“The reality of loss is hard to grasp. Mostly it’s like a story I’m reading that can’t possibly be true. Then realization comes in a blast of splinters, sharp and cruel, and my heart breaks all over again.”

This quote comes from young Veronica’s diary shortly after she learns that her parents have been killed in a bombing raid. Her words indicate that loss resurrects itself in her consciousness repeatedly. Such feelings would be difficult for a teenager to handle, and Veronica confirms this by suppressing it whenever the pain becomes too intense.

“I lost my mother when I was six, which was horrendous, but I guess in some ways it’s even worse when you’re fourteen. You’ve got all that love built up over the years, all those hugs and conversations and things you do together and then all of it’s just snatched away.”

Patrick makes this observation after reading about Veronica’s loss. He immediately shows empathy by trying to put himself in his grandmother’s shoes. Despite his own childhood trauma, he is even willing to say that Veronica’s loss is worse than his own. This gesture indicates his generous nature.

“I feel all too conscious of my past. Sometimes memories gather dust in the back crevices of your mind. Sometimes they hover over you like shadows. Sometimes they come after you with a club.”

The more time Veronica spends on the ice with the penguins, the more she is aware of their sense of community. Everybody seems to belong. Her own isolation is more painful in contrast to this daily display of camaraderie. As long as Veronica kept her memories locked in a forgotten box, she could keep the pain at bay. Having lifted the lid, she must endure the consequences.

“Something is happening to my shriveled old heart. After seven decades of inaction it is apparently waking up again. I can only attribute this to the constant presence of a small, round, fluffy penguin.”

Veronica has just fought a pitched battle against Mike and Dietrich to keep Pip. His abandonment by his own kind struck a chord with Veronica because of her own outcast status as an unwed mother. Caring for Pip is her second chance. She couldn’t save Enzo, but she will save this baby penguin. The effort to do so revives her heart.

“That is it, I realize. That’s the thing that gives their life purpose. That ‘together’ that has been so lacking in my own life. All that I possess is encased in silver and hanging on the end of a chain, under my thermals, pressed against my skin. Four strands of hair.”

Veronica has just shared her story with Terry and recounted the most painful part about the loss of her son. Telling the story out loud and receiving Terry’s sympathetic response has left Veronica in a state of emotional turmoil. As is typical, she isolates herself afterward and goes out alone to watch the penguins. However, their happy camaraderie only adds greater emphasis to her alienation.

“My history imparts no great wisdom, no last words fine enough to go down for posterity. I can only think: Well, what was that all about?”

Veronica is semi-conscious after her collapse. She is hovering between life and death and attempting to process the sweep of her life, but she sees it as anticlimactic. Greater accomplishments are still in her future, though she doesn’t know it at the time. Soon, she will be able to say that her life was worth something after all.

“I don’t want Granny to die. I’m feeling feelings I haven’t had in years. A sudden, violent need for family connection. A longing to know more about her. Shame at my behavior the first time we met.”

Patrick has arrived on Locket Island and watches Veronica as she hovers between worlds. Seeing her in this state makes him aware of his own loneliness. Like his grandmother, he has suppressed some of his own desire for connection, but it all comes rushing to the surface in the need for her to live.

“I transfer my gaze to Pip again. ‘See?’ he says. ‘It’s perfectly possible for somebody to love you, even though you insist on making it difficult for them. You don’t have to be so alone.’”

Veronica is semi-conscious but fancies that Pip is speaking to her. He points out that Patrick is at her bedside, begging her to live. She matters to others. Wryly, the penguin points out that Veronica doesn’t make herself particularly loveable, but she is loved, nonetheless. This is reason enough to go on living.

“The only way I can entertain myself is to listen to what’s going on around me. It’s fair to say I’m doing more listening than I’ve ever done in my life before. Never have I concentrated on others in quite this much detail.”

As Veronica recuperates, she becomes attuned to the relationship developing between Patrick and Terry. Her concern for Pip has melted her heart enough that she no longer lives in a world of one. Listening to others is a sign of caring about others. It is the first real step in Veronica’s emotional recovery.

“‘It’s totally OK to cry, Granny,’ Patrick asserts, scooping Pip up and placing him on the bedspread. ‘Crying has nothing to do with being weak.’ Terry nods. ‘I agree. It’s the opposite. Tears come when you’ve been too strong for much too long.’”

Patrick and Terry have just brought Pip back from his visit to the colony. In his absence, Veronica feared for his safety, perhaps expecting him to be snatched away from her the way Enzo was. Seeing him safely returned elicits tears of relief. Veronica rebukes herself for the weakness of tears, but Terry and Patrick are both wiser about the need to weep.

“This is important. I see now how much I want Granny V in my life. Both my mum and my dad abandoned me, they left me in different ways. But my granny—well, she found me, didn’t she? It took her a while, but she did it.”

Patrick is explaining his feelings to Terry. Now that he’s traveled halfway around the world and nearly witnessed his grandmother’s death, he recognizes how much he wants to keep his connection to her alive. He also doesn’t blame Veronica for her initial coldness toward him. He is merely grateful that she made the effort to find him at all.

“The bustling community life of Locket Island continues. It nudges me into an awareness that I myself have learned much about community life since arriving here. And, like the penguins, however harsh conditions may be, I, Veronica McCreedy, am a survivor.”

Veronica again uses the word “community” to describe her experience in Antarctica. She isn’t merely referencing the penguin colony but also the community at the research center and the community of family that she’s discovered with Patrick. Her sense of loss isolated her from sharing in any of those relationships, but she now recognizes that grief can and must be overcome if one wishes to survive.