Spell of Winter

by Helen Dunmore

  ‘Don’t bother,’ I said. ‘I’ll pick it up later.’ I looked at the straw-coloured scattering of my letter. Some of it had fallen into a big tub where the earth was black and freshly turned. I touched it. It was moist. Someone had been digging in the tub.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ said Mr Bullivant. ‘You look ill. I heard you’d been ill. Come, sit down over here.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Pick the paper out of the tub. You do it. Please.’

  ‘Do you want to piece it together? We could have a try, but it might be a bit tricky. Still, I’m your man when it comes to restoration. Here you are, these are all the bits, I think. No, hang on, there are more under that seat.’

  ‘It’s no good,’ I said. ‘Don’t bother. It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Of course it does. You look awful. Shall I fetch someone?’

  ‘Not Kate. Get Rob.’

  He was gone. I sat on the edge of the tub and closed my eyes. Kate had not gone out of the house that night. She had buried my baby here, where no one would ever look for it. It was here to feed the orange trees my father had planted. Next year they would have oranges on them like lamps. Fruit and flowers together, twining out of the bones of the little female thing. Grains of faintness hissed in front of my eyes and I heard voices swinging towards me.

  ‘She doesn’t look at all well.’

  ‘We’d better get Kate.’

  ‘No, it was you she wanted.’

  I opened my eyes. There was fresh black soil on the edge of my skirt, like a mourning border.

  ‘I’ve got you,’ said Rob.

  He had got me. The hunt was over. Our baby was just where we sat, as close to us as his arm was around my shoulders. If he looked down and ran his fingers through the soil, he would see it too. We’d made her, and Rob didn’t even know she had existed.

  ‘You mind that orange tree,’ said Rob, rocking me gently. ‘Grandfather’s only just repotted it. He did it himself, you’ve never seen such a performance. Soil everywhere, Grandfather cursing, the roots up in the air. I’ll be a Dutchman if it doesn’t die on us.’

  ‘That tub?’ I asked stupidly. ‘That one behind me?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Can’t you see it’s fresh soil? Grandfather thought if the tree was in a larger pot it might fruit. But I don’t believe he’s packed down the soil. There’ll be air bubbles and the roots will rot.’

  ‘I thought it was Kate.’

  ‘Kate? Catch Kate lugging these tubs about. She’s got more sense. Of course it won’t fruit. All it ever grows is those wizened little things the size of marbles. But you know how Grandfather’s got a bee in his bonnet about these trees. All right now, Cath? You look better.’

  ‘Yes, I’m fine.’ He was talking to distract me, the way he did with horses when they shuddered all over, ready to shy. I knew it, but I liked it too, just as the horses did. My hands had gone slack in my lap. Rob was right, of course he was. It was my grandfather who had lifted the tree with its ball of roots and buried it in fresh black earth. The white roots – I shivered. Kate’s story was there: it had never gone away. The arm. The roots of it where it came off. My dream of the arm, its roots flowering like white violets. Let me not think of it. Let me not think of bad things. But there they were, jostling to come in like night at a window. Rob would not let me be hurt. He loved me. He had killed the boy in the wallpaper for me when he came peeling from his frieze, leaping lightly on to the floor to stand and mock me. It was not our baby in the orange tub. The little female thing had gone.

  ‘I am her mother,’ I thought.

  A poem danced in my head. It was about a woman whose baby died after birth. The baby was gone, but the mother who had also been born that night could not die.

  A mother, a mother was born.

  I wondered who had written it. Whoever it was they had known what they were writing about. Better not ask.

  A mother, a mother was born.

  But you could stop being a mother. My mother had done it, so she was the proof. And there was Mr Bullivant standing in front of us with the scraps of my mother’s letter crushed up in his hand. He did not try to put his arm around me or touch me, because he was not my brother. Rob must have seen the scraps of the letter, but he asked nothing. Nobody could ask any of the questions they wanted to ask, and I was glad of it.

  ‘I must go,’ said Mr Bullivant. ‘I hope you’ll soon be well again.’

  ‘I’ll walk round to the stables with you,’ I said suddenly. ‘I need some air.’

  ‘You ought to stay inside,’ Rob argued, his grip on me tightening. The crease between his mouth and his nose deepened, the way it did when he wanted something. One day it would be a deep, deep line. How many days and years would it take to score that line as deep as it was going to be? How much wanting? I was going to be there to see it, I thought. All the changes of his body which were still hidden, like a map not yet unfolded. We could not help ourselves as we rushed on to find the meanings already hidden, printed in our bodies like those lines.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘There’s no air in here, that’s why I felt faint. It’ll do me good to go out for a while.’ For a second I thought he wouldn’t release me, but of course he did. Our little group stood still for a second: brother, sister, friend.

  ‘What shall I tell her?’ asked Mr Bullivant when we were out of Rob’s hearing.

  ‘Was there a letter for Rob as well?’ I asked.

  ‘No. Only for you.’

  We walked on slowly, side by side but not touching. ‘I wonder what she wants,’ I said, not making a question of it.

  ‘Nothing. Just to get in touch with you.’

  ‘That’s wanting, isn’t it?’

  ‘Why don’t you let her talk to you? Don’t decide beforehand what she’s going to say. She is your mother.’

  ‘Mother,’ I said. ‘That doesn’t have to mean anything. It’s a word, that’s all.’

  ‘It’s a powerful word.’

  ‘Is it? Is it powerful to you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Because of your mother?’

  ‘She’s dead.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I doubt if you do.’

  ‘Then you must tell me.’

  ‘No, I mustn’t. It’s you we’re talking about. This is your story.’

  ‘Then it’s not a very good one, I’m afraid.’

  ‘That’s because it hasn’t started yet. It needs some action. So what are you going to do?’

  ‘Don’t tell her about me tearing up the letter.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘When she asks, say it never came. To you, I mean. So you were never able to give it to me. If she writes again, I’ll read it.’

  ‘Will you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘She will write, you can be sure of that.’

  We were in the yard. I picked my way over scattered, dirty straw.

  ‘Time to clean out your stables again,’ said Mr Bullivant. ‘It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?’

  I looked up at the flat white sky and laughed, ‘Do you call this beautiful? It isn’t at all.’

  ‘No? Well, perhaps not. But the thing is, it’s promising.’

  ‘You could say that. I suppose it can’t get much worse.’

  ‘Isn’t that what promising means? But you must go in. You mustn’t get cold.’

  ‘I’m not cold.’

  He looked at me. ‘I don’t know if I should say this, but you do look different. I can’t quite put my finger on it. Older, perhaps. Is it because you’ve been ill? Are you really ill? Are they looking after you properly?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You ought to come away. This is no life for you, Catherine. It’s not good for you to stay here and do nothing.’

  Do nothing. I caught in my smile before he could see it, but he was quick.

  ‘Oh, so you don’t do nothing? What is it you do?’

  ‘Nothing anyone else would like to hear,’ I said.
His particoloured eyes flicked at me. He was tense. What we said sounded like a game, but there was no joy in it. He was in the wrong place too; he ought never to have bought Ash Court. It would swallow him up, for all his money.

  ‘Goodbye, Catherine,’ he said. The light was strong in the yard, although the sun was hidden. I didn’t want to go back inside the house, and I waited there in the yard until the trace of his horse’s hoofs had become quieter than dust falling. There was a steady chink of metal from inside the stables; harness-mending. I felt safe here, though I wasn’t sure what I needed to be safe from. Myself, perhaps.

  You always have to go back inside. Inside is what you have made and it waits for you. This time Miss Gallagher had come.

  ‘Oh, Catherine,’ she said, ‘you look so pale. My poor child,’ and she reached out her hand and stroked my forehead. Her hand was hot, and very slightly sticky. It smelled of rubber where she’d been gripping the handlebars of her bike. I pictured her pedalling her way to me, erect in the saddle, eyes fixed forward.

  ‘Let’s go out,’ I said. ‘You remember I said I’d take you walking in the woods? There are all sorts of places nobody knows.’

  She flushed. I looked away quickly from her big, excited face.

  ‘What luck I put on my stout boots,’ she burbled, ‘and here I was thinking I’d be sitting with an invalid. I heard you still weren’t well.’

  ‘I’m much better. Wait here while I change my shoes.’

  I ran inside and fumbled in the boothole. There were Rob’s boots, then mine, both clodded with mud. Never mind. My heart was thudding. I darted back through the hall. Nobody was about.

  ‘Did you see Kate? Or Rob?’ I asked casually as I stooped beside her to lace up my boots.

  ‘No, there wasn’t a soul to be seen,’ she said gaily. ‘Quite a morgue, Catherine. I could have gone in and out and no one any the wiser. But of course everything’s safe here where we all know each other. And it was you I came to see. I’ve been worried about you, you silly girl. You need someone to keep an eye on you.’

  ‘You don’t need to worry. I’m fine. First chop,’ I said, smiling at her.

  ‘Oh, that dreadful slang of your brother’s. Really, Catherine. But we shan’t scold today, shall we? What an afternoon – isn’t it perfect?’ She screwed up her eyes and peered at the sky, which was no brighter than it had been when Mr Bullivant enthused over it earlier.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘it is nice, isn’t it? So no one even knows you’re here? How funny! Let’s wheel your bicycle round the side of the house. We can leave it somewhere out of the way. I want to fetch something from the potting-shed.’

  We went along the blind side of the house, away from the main windows. It was damp on this path where it ran close to the wall, and the sun never shone. We pushed her bicycle into the dry brown heart of a rhododendron clump. ‘There, that’ll be fine even if it rains,’ I said. ‘And look, when the branches spring back you’d never know it was there.’ We laughed. ‘I’ll get the spade. I shan’t be a minute – you wait here.’ We were gay as two schoolgirls. I waved to her as she stood on the path, then I ducked round the corner and untied the twine that held the potting-shed door.

  I loved the dry warmth of the potting-shed. There would be an old spade hung on a nail: yes, it was there. And a huge ball of twine, and rows of little pots, and labelled envelopes of seed. I had spent hours here on wet winter days when I was a child. It smelled of creosote, clean and safe. I could stay here now, writing labels, measuring lengths of twine to tie over the seed beds in spring. Those were good afternoons, when the rain poured steadily until it might have been a hundred years since I slipped out of the house, away from everyone. I still wore pinafores then. When I was tired I would throw my pinafore up over my head and suck my thumb until I went to sleep, curled up on a pile of sacks. Rob didn’t like the potting-shed; he said it was boring.

  But Miss Gallagher was waiting. I took the spade down from its nail. The handle was black-smooth with wear, but there was no rust on the metal. It was a good spade. I remembered using it in the days when I had my own vegetable patch. It cut clean, crumbling clods out of the earth, and when the soil was waterlogged it made clayey, shivering slices. But you weren’t supposed to dig when the soil was wet.

  ‘Good gracious! You can’t carry that heavy thing, child! Why ever do you need it?’

  ‘Grandfather wants a holly hedge,’ I told her. ‘He said if we saw any good specimens that had self-seeded in the woods, it would be worth digging them up and heeling them in somewhere until spring.’

  ‘Surely it’s the wrong time of year for digging up trees?’

  ‘Oh no. Not holly. It’s very tough. I just thought we might see some. I’ll take these sacks to wrap round the roots.’

  ‘Dear me, Catherine, you think of everything, don’t you? Let me carry something.’

  ‘No, you’ll get tired. We’ve got quite a long walk.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘It’s a surprise,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, this is rather a thrill! Doesn’t it take you back, Catherine? Remember those treasure walks?’

  I did, grimly. There had been miles of clues on drizzling afternoons, and the treasure was never worth having. A threepenny bit wrapped in brown paper had lit up a whole afternoon once, but it was Father who tossed that into her treasure box.

  ‘I see I shall have to put my thinking cap on,’ she said, delighted.

  ‘Yes. Careful, this branch is going to spring back.’ I held it for her and she ducked through so I was looking down on to the top of her hat.

  ‘Where’s your scarab pin?’ I asked.

  ‘Do you know, Catherine, it’s so annoying but I’ve lost it. I can’t think where. Of course it’s not really lost, only mislaid. I’m not superstitious, as you know, but I really do think of that scarab as my luck. But where on earth are we going, Catherine? I never even knew this part of the woods existed.’

  Of course she did not. She was a woman of paths and gardens. For hours she had stood on the edge of the terrace, yoo-hooing hopelessly after me and Rob as we played deep in the woods in the melting twilight.

  ‘We never heard you.’

  ‘We didn’t know you were calling. We’re sorry.’

  We were deep in the woods now. She did not know it but we were swinging round in a wide half-circle. Even in winter, with the leaves off the trees, you could not see far. There was the scrub of holly and rhododendrons, and long curtains of old man’s beard hung, browning. It was a place for ivy and dark-leaved things which did not die easily. It was still and cold and the afternoon was ending. Our boots crushed brown oak leaves, beech mast and the husks of chestnuts dropped by squirrels. She slipped twice, clumsily, and caught her arm on the dry snake of a bramble branch. There were little beads of blood on her wrist, as bright as my own.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, looking at me, her hat askew, ‘isn’t it rather wild in here, Catherine? There’s no path. Ought we to go any farther?’

  ‘It gets easier farther on,’ I said. ‘Give me your hand. We’re nearly there.’

  We were nearly there. I used the spade to smash down the brambles. There were plenty of holly seedlings, but she didn’t notice them. She was shielding her face from thorns. I knew what she thought, because they were the old thoughts about me that she had been lugging with her for years. Catherine is wild. Catherine is a tomboy. If it weren’t for her brother Catherine would be quite different. I do what I can.

  ‘Here,’ I said, and we stopped. The crackle of our boots died, and we were no longer an interruption in the wood, but part of it. Ivy stirred by my fingers, where it hung loosely from a dead oak. The trees grew very close here, and they were killing one another as they strained for the light. It was only a tiny clearing.

  ‘Just about room to swing a cat,’ I said.

  ‘Is this where the flowers are, that you were telling me about?’ she asked, looking around, a little bewildered.

  ‘No, they grow
farther back,’ I said. ‘It’s lighter there, and the sun comes through. There aren’t any flowers here. Rob and I brought some white violets here once.’

  ‘Did you? How nice! I love violets. I think they must be my favourite flower, but then it’s so difficult to decide, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Or roses – roses are the queens of the summer, aren’t they, Catherine? Do you remember that poem I taught you?’

  ‘I don’t like roses.’

  ‘No, you don’t, do you? Fancy anyone not liking roses.’

  But she was faltering. The dark wood was quickly getting the better of her jollity. We stood quite close together, looking up at the little patch of overgrown sky which seemed high up and far away. Suddenly a thrush sang out a few liquid notes as if the bird had turned over in its sleep, sung, then slept again. Farther away there was the long thick cawing of rooks.

  ‘They’re going home,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The rooks. Because night’s coming.’

  ‘Oh I see. Yes, it is getting rather dark, isn’t it? Don’t you think we ought to be getting back?’

  ‘We’ve only just come,’ I said. ‘I haven’t shown you the place yet.’

  ‘Is there something special?’ she asked brightly, humouring me. ‘But then we must be thinking of home. I’m beginning to want my tea.’ Her hair was wild. The woods had streaked and scratched her, and there was a long rip down her skirt. She smiled at me gamely, her teeth more pitiful than she knew. But I was pitiless.

  ‘Which way do you think it is?’ I asked her.

  ‘Which way? Back to the house, you mean? Really, Catherine, I’m sure I don’t know.’

  ‘Guess.’ I turned slowly, all the way round, and she watched me. ‘This way? Or this? What do you think?’

  ‘A guessing-game! Whatever next?’ She appealed to an invisible onlooker.