The Big Snow Read online

  She laughed. ‘Thank you, Professor. Watch you don’t fall off those ladders!’ He felt foolish and turned his face to the wall and hoped she couldn’t see the flush of colour that filled it. ‘And what about kites?’ she asked. ‘Did they invent those as well?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, pretending he was concentrating on painting.

  ‘I think they invented opium as well,’ she added, ‘and talking of drugs I could do with a cigarette. Let’s have a break.’

  He watched her slump to the floor and he knew that already she had lost interest in painting and he remembered the first time he had come to the house and the way her eyes flitted from object to object, never resting on anything for very long. In that moment he knew that she would spend time and money fixing up the house and then a short time later probably get bored with it and move on to somewhere else. Resentment seeped into his body as he continued to paint.

  ‘Why did you come to this village?’ he asked. ‘Why not stay in Belfast? Where your friends are.’

  ‘It was Brian’s idea, really – I think he had this vision of himself as a country squire with a bit of fishing and shooting thrown in for good measure. And property is always a good investment. This place was a snip – old Ashbury had let it go to seed, hadn’t spent a penny on it in years. When it’s done up it’ll look nice and turn a pretty profit as well.’ She inhaled, then angled her head to let the smoke stream through her lips. ‘We don’t actually have that many friends living in Belfast, more business associates than anything. Most of our friends are in London now and Belfast is an awful place – all that smoke and noise. People spitting in the streets.’

  ‘Money’s important to Mr Richmond,’ he said as he stopped painting and sat on the top of the ladders.

  ‘Peter, money’s important to everyone. Makes the world go round. Do you like living in the village?’

  ‘Not particularly. I was thinking that maybe next year I could stay in digs up at Queen’s.’

  ‘That sounds like a good idea. Probably improve your social life as well. Have you told your father yet? Won’t he miss you helping in the shop?’

  ‘I haven’t mentioned it yet, haven’t finally made my mind up. But I won’t miss having to work in the shop,’ he said. ‘It’s not much fun.’

  ‘You met me there,’ she said lightly, brushing ash off the knee of her trousers.

  ‘That’s right,’ he answered. ‘I owe it that.’ He wasn’t sure if he should have said it or not, aware how different the tone of his voice was from hers, and to distract attention from it he went on talking. ‘The village is so small; everyone knows everyone else’s business. I wouldn’t want to live here all my life. And anyway there isn’t much call for jobs that need French.’ He stared down at the side of her face, saw again the light, thin scar. He wanted to touch it, to run the tip of his finger along its seal. ‘Maybe I should do what you did and go and live in Paris after I get my degree.’

  ‘You should,’ she said but she was staring into the distance and he imagined that he heard indifference in her voice. He wanted to pull her back again to the moment. ‘I think I’d like to live in Paris – it would be like the other side of the world to my parents, though. Walking along the Seine, going to look at paintings, sitting with a drink or coffee at one of those cafés.’

  ‘You’ll have to learn to smoke,’ she said. ‘Everyone smokes in Paris.’ She reached her cigarette up to him. He looked at the pale stretch of her underarm as he took it. It looked white and perfect as paper before it’s written on. Her scent was on the cigarette as he smoked it. ‘See, it’s not so hard. Makes you look very intellectual.’

  ‘Like a professor?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ she laughed, ‘like a young Camus or Sartre. There was a funeral in the village this morning, wasn’t there? Jenny said something about it.’

  ‘Hannah Stevenson. Thirty-seven years old: she had cancer.’ He handed her back the cigarette.

  ‘How terrible,’ she said, smoothing her hair flat. ‘Makes me shiver just to think about it. I hate to hear about people dying young, it always scares me a little.’

  But as he listened to her he knew that she wouldn’t think about it very much, or think very much about anyone beyond herself and, despite this knowledge, he knew it didn’t matter to him or change the way he felt. He knew, too, that she would be interested in things or people only as long as they amused her and when she became bored she would discard them as speedily and lightly as they had been taken up. He looked at the unfinished wall and wondered how soon that moment would come for him. He started to paint again, his brush scratching at the silence that had settled.

  ‘Let’s leave this, Peter, it’s going to take forever. We need bigger brushes. I think I’ll get someone in to do the preparation, then I can concentrate on the important stuff.’ She splayed what was left of the cigarette into the ashtray and went to the window. He watched her stare at the snow and as she did so she took out the band that held back her hair in a pony tail and shook it loose. ‘I wonder how Brian’s getting on with the skis. Hope he hasn’t broken his neck. Why don’t we go out and have a look – we can bring the sledge. I haven’t been on a sledge since I was a girl.’

  ‘What about the brushes? Shouldn’t we clean them?’ he asked.

  ‘Leave them, we can do it later,’ she said, already on her way out of the room and searching for her coat. He balanced his brush on the side of the tin, then did the same with hers. She put on a black duffel coat with a yellow scarf and pushed her hair under a black velvet hat. ‘How do I look?’ she asked. ‘Lovely,’ he answered, but injecting his voice with lightness and trying to avoid looking at her. ‘Why, thank you,’ she said. ‘But staying warm and snug’s the ticket today. Now where’s those wellies?’

  Outside a pale, washed-out sun was shouldering the sloped fields behind the house. There was no sign of her husband as they set off across the grounds at the rear of the house. She laughed and played through the snow like a girl and he wanted the sledge to have wings, to hear himself say, ‘Come away with me from this place. Fly away to somewhere better.’ He thought of them walking in Paris, sitting in the shadowy corners of bars where famous people met to discuss paintings and politics. Come away with him and know that something purer than money and wealth could hold people close, that what he felt for her could carry them beyond any obstacles the world might throw in their way. Come while life still gave them time. He remembered the evening he had seen Hannah Stevenson beside the river with the sun in her hair. The world could change, change as quickly and suddenly as this snow had transformed the earth.

  They passed through the screening hedge of fir trees and into the slope of what was open pasture. She took the rope as they started the climb, and walked shoulder to shoulder with him, harnessed to the task, and only the cold stream of air against his face stopped him stuttering into speech. The sun was sinking slowly into the hollow of the afternoon as sometimes her shoulder touched and rubbed against his. She spoke in little running trills of words about the snow, about holidays she’d had as a child, but the words only touched the edges of his consciousness. The light on the slope caught tiny nuggets of ice and made them shine so that as he walked he wanted to scoop them with his hand and offer them to her as diamonds. He saw the tracks of Richmond’s skis but turned his head away and she didn’t notice them in her self-absorbed pleasure of memory. Where the climb steepened, her words got lost inside the run of her breathing, the rise of her laughter, and they reminded him of the sounds he had heard her make, but now she made them for him and each one strengthened the force of his desire.

  Standing at the top of the slope it looked much steeper and further to the bottom than they might have imagined. He looked at her and sensed her hesitation. ‘We can always walk back down and look for somewhere else,’ he said. She pointed out her husband’s ski tracks curving in perfect symmetry down the slope and disappearing through the fir trees. ‘If he can do it, so can we,’ she said, pulling he
r hat tighter on her head and clutching at his sleeve. ‘The worst we can do is break our necks.’ He asked her again if she was sure and she answered by climbing on to the sledge, resting her feet on the runners, and handing him the rope. She wanted him to steer and when he sat in front and shortened the rope in his grasp, he felt her push up closer with her arms resting lightly on his shoulders. ‘Are you ready?’ he asked, tightening his grip on the rope. ‘Yes, yes,’ she called and patted his shoulders as a starting signal, but when he tried to push off his foot merely sank into the snow and nothing happened. Her laughter rippled behind him and he shoved again and this time the sledge started down the slope, barely moving at first but gradually gaining momentum until it rushed into a surge of speed which drew a cry of fear and pleasure from her as they flew over the frozen snow. She was tight against his back now, her arms round his waist and her breath fluting and singing against his neck. Picking up speed all the time they hurtled forward and her body pressed hard against his, while for a second he tilted his face skyward and let the air flare past his face. Down below he saw Richmond emerge from the trees to wait their arrival at the bottom. They were rushing towards him but he no longer cared for he knew this was his moment, nor did it matter that in a few seconds it would be over. The rope was cutting into his sore hand as he tried to keep the sledge on course but nothing mattered now because he knew that he had the whole of her. He lifted his face again to the speeding sky, imagined he felt the sun’s rays on it. Felt the sun on his wings. She was shouting something about her hat but he was oblivious of everything beyond himself. Everything was falling away. He suddenly felt free of it all, so light he was almost weightless.

  They were reaching the level now; slowing down and heading towards the snow-seamed trees where Richmond waited leaning on his ski sticks. Suddenly the sledge angled against a drifted bank of snow, and sent them both tumbling into the snow. He heard her peals of laughter as she rolled in a tumble of flailing arms and legs. He gathered himself on to his knees and brushed snow from his face while she did the same. Her hat had come off halfway down the slope and she shook her hair free of its sprinkling of snow, laughing all the time with the sun in her hair and in her voice. Then she saw her husband, called his name and waved her arm in elaborate circles. He watched her stumble to her feet and set off to meet his advance. When they got closer then stumbled into each other’s laughing arms, he raised his hand to let the flakes fall into his palm, watched as they faded into nothing at the touch of his flesh and wondered if it must always be so.

  The Wedding Dress

  She glanced again at the clock. Each tick was edged with her own impatience. The boy was late again: he couldn’t be relied on. Even now he was probably dandering along somewhere, stopping to jaw with some of his mates, or breaking off his round to kick ball or throw stones at cats. Surely Fitzimons could find a better boy to deliver his papers. You’d think the cold would make him hurry. Thinking of the cold made her shiver and pull more tightly the extra cardigan she had draped over her shoulders like a shawl. It was cold enough for snow. She went to the window and peered out into the dropping chalky gloom, then listened for the bang of a gate or the jagged-edged whistle that might mark his approach. She thought for a second of putting more coal on the fire but decided against it, knowing that she had to be strict in her rationing. Before it got dark she would fill the coal scuttle and there was a broken deck chair in the shed that she could take a hatchet to in order to build up a store of firewood. There was an old armchair as well, its upholstery spotted with mildew, which could be broken up. And if she put a layer of slack on the fire maybe she could keep it in all night. Better the extra expense than the cost of a burst pipe.

  Where was the boy? She remembered with resentment the shilling she’d given him at Christmas; he’d taken it with barely a thank you and it was soon obvious to her that the gesture had failed to establish any kind of contractual arrangement or greater respect. Sometimes he left more of the paper on the outside than through the letterbox. Once he had come early and the rain had wet two-thirds of it before she realized it was there. She had thought of complaining to Mr Fitzimons but was nervous that it might only make things worse. And it would be difficult to complain about the variation in time of delivery. Fitzimons might wonder why it mattered whether the paper arrived at one time or another, so long as it actually arrived and wasn’t unreasonably late. ‘What did it matter?’ he’d think and he’d brush his chin with fingers grimed by print and the dirt of money. Well, it did matter; it mattered to her as much as anything did during her day. She was waiting for news, for the right one; not the news on the front page because she never read that much, or much else on the rest of the pages. If only that boy would hurry. If it hadn’t been so cold she might have gone and waited at the gate as she sometimes did, disguising her impatience by pretending to be looking at the garden or brushing the path. The thought of the coldness made her shiver again. After the paper had come and she’d searched it, she’d chop some more sticks as she’d planned. Before it got too late.

  She went into the kitchen and set the kettle to boil. It was important to keep warm. She’d make a cup of tea, then fill the stone jar. She could sit in front of the fire and heat her feet on the jar – not so close of course that her legs would get all measled and blotched. It was important to look after herself – it wasn’t every day you got married. She had to look her best. The date hadn’t been fixed yet but probably around Easter would be best. When the weather was warmer. A lot of people got married at Easter. The papers were always full of wedding photographs then – sometimes a whole page. It was hardly likely that there’d be a photograph in that evening’s paper, for who in their right mind would get married in February? None but those in a hurry and they’d hardly want their faces published in the paper. Weddings in February? All pinched faces and trains blown ragged. No, Easter was about the right time or even the summer but the summer was too long to wait – she’s be a bride long before the summer.

  Everything had to be sorted, everything had to be ready. That’s why she needed the paper. Where was that stupid boy? If this kept up she would complain to Fitzimons; he wasn’t the only shop in the area. And he was prompt enough in giving the bill. She walked into the hall to check it hadn’t plopped silently on to the carpet when she was boiling the kettle. But she knew already it hadn’t come – the clumsy clod of a boy always made enough stir to fanfare his arrival. There was no way she could have missed him. The air in the hall was cold, but not settled and stained with dampness the way it sometimes was. She’d have to take the electric fire to her bedroom, half an hour before she went to bed, just to take the coldness out of the room. And it’d be a question of putting more things on not taking them off.

  In another couple of weeks she’d be sleeping with her husband, his arms round her to keep her warm and safe. She coloured a little at the thought because it wasn’t something she allowed herself to think much about. Still, it was a fact of life, something that couldn’t be denied, and when she considered it in those terms there was nothing unseemly or vulgar about it. Of course it wouldn’t be easy, sharing her bed with someone after all these years, but she knew he was considerate and gentle and, well, if things didn’t work out they could surely come to an understanding. It wasn’t such an important thing anyway, not half as important as people liked to make out and there was far too much talk about it – people making a show of themselves, talking about things that wouldn’t have been dreamed of years ago.

  She’d nothing to reproach herself about and she was glad. Nothing to be ashamed of, and if the papers were to be believed there weren’t many could say that any more. In her day girls knew how to behave and those who didn’t soon had their families reminding them. When she’d been old enough to go to the dances in the village hall she’d still been thought young enough for her father to collect her outside the door, the moment it was over. The way it should be. For a second she thought of her father, saw him standing cap in hand b
eside his bicycle, the yolk of light from the hall’s open doors touching him in the shadows. He’d have been so proud of her now if he’d been alive to walk her down the aisle. If truth be told, a little jealous, too. She was sure about that, there was no denying it. She’d seen it in his eyes when a boy’s name was mentioned or he’d noticed her talking to some lad. A few words in passing, that’s all it ever was, but it’d be enough. ‘There’ll be time enough for that,’ he’d say as if he didn’t need to say any more and he didn’t, for she’d never argued, never sought to cross his will. Time enough.

  She glanced at the clock. It was already after six. What if he didn’t come? What if he was sick or hadn’t turned in? What if there was no one else to do the round? A little pulse of panic spun her to the window. The grey tide of light seemed to rush towards her, swirling and encompassing every part of her. She tried to raise herself above it by painting pictures which were tinged and shaded by hope, the hope that this would be the night she would find something very beautiful. The one she was meant to have. Moving away from the cold square of the window she practised the slow steps of her walk – that slow walk down the aisle – keeping her head high, acknowledging with a smile the faces turned towards her. Careful not to trip, careful not to step on the train. Careful to be on time. She wouldn’t make him wait – that was only a foolishness. Not for a second would she make him think she wasn’t coming or that she’d changed her mind. It was beyond her how any man or woman could do that, a cruelty that could brook no forgiveness.

  Maybe it was the stern defiance in her father’s eyes that had kept the callers away. Maybe they weren’t brave enough to challenge his dominion but if they weren’t brave enough they weren’t deserving of her. A man had to struggle for the woman he loved, had to pay a high price, for if his claim was too easily granted he would hold what he had gained too cheaply. She turned to the mirror and traced her fingers over her cheek. Maybe it hadn’t been her father’s face. Maybe it had been her own face. Never beautiful the way a few women were blessed, but surely there was beauty there if someone had wanted to find it. Angling her head, she smoothed away some of the lines with both hands. It happened for other women, happened every day the world turned, and not all of them were beautiful. It was hard to understand, hard to bear. But time enough.