The World in Winter

by John Christopher

  ‘What about you? Doesn’t he feel guilty about that?’

  ‘There are degrees in guilt, aren’t there? And I’ve queered my pitch by being too understanding before. With me, the guilt is blunted by all those confessions. If he leaves me for Carol, he only sees it as wronging me a little more than he has done in the past – wronging her would be a different kind of betrayal. And he can always tell himself that it’s better for me, too – that I’m well rid of a bad husband.’ She tried to smile. ‘In fact, he’s told me that already.’

  ‘Yes, you know him,’ Andrew said. ‘And it’s true enough, I suppose.’

  ‘And you,’ she said, ‘are rid of a bad wife. A stroke of good fortune for both of us. We should be properly grateful, you to David and me to Carol. We might have gone on for years otherwise, mightn’t we? For a lifetime.’

  He said: ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do. When I came here … I still didn’t think it was serious – on his part. I’d got used to that idea.’

  After putting their drinks on the coffee table, he had sat down in an armchair. Madeleine got up from her place and came over to him. She put cool dry hands on his forehead and sat on the arm beside him.

  ‘Poor old Andy,’ she said. ‘It’s really hard for you, isn’t it? You’re losing innocence, as well as a person. I wish I could help.’

  He had come to her, consciously, for sympathy, but her physical closeness, reminding him of his loss, distressed him. Restless, he got up and walked to the window to look out.

  ‘I cry at nights,’ she said. ‘Women are luckier than men, I suppose?’

  He turned back to face her. ‘Go on talking.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  She smiled sadly. ‘No. It doesn’t matter.’

  5

  David was already leaning against the bar when Andrew got there. He said:

  ‘Hello, Andy. The usual?’

  Andrew hesitated, then shrugged. ‘Thanks.’

  The tankard was set down in front of him, and he lifted it to drink. David raised his own.

  ‘Health and wealth,’ he said. Putting it down, he went on: ‘I’m glad you came along. I wasn’t sure you would.’

  ‘Not for the pleasure of seeing you.’

  David smiled. ‘Well?’

  ‘I suppose there are some practical details we shall have to sort out.’

  ‘The lawyer can see to them. Andy, I’m sorry things have happened like this. You may find it hard to believe, but I truly am.’

  Andrew said, with cold anger: ‘The trouble with you is not so much a matter of being unprincipled as of being irresponsible. You can’t admit that your actions have effects.’

  ‘I think I do admit that. But I also think it’s a good idea to rescue what one can from the debris.’

  ‘On your terms.’

  David shrugged. ‘On the best terms that can be agreed.’

  ‘For weeks you were sleeping with my wife and meeting me seemingly as a friend.’

  ‘Nothing seeming about it. It started with Carol when I hardly knew you – that first time you came round for drinks. And bear in mind that I sensed things about her which, for all the time you’d been married to her, you failed to see.’

  Andrew said bitterly: ‘You’re very frank about your future wife.’

  ‘Yes. I’ll be frank about myself, too. Even if you had been my friend then, I don’t think it would have made any difference.’

  ‘No. You take what you want, don’t you, whoever it belongs to?’

  ‘A human being isn’t a possession. We’re all free agents, Andy. I’m as much against rape as anyone.’

  ‘They voluntarily make contracts. They incur responsibilities.’

  ‘You take people too seriously.’

  ‘You think that’s a bad thing?’

  ‘It depends how you look at them, I suppose. When it was a matter of immortal souls, and the risk of an eternal sizzle, one had to take oneself seriously. Aspects have changed.’

  ‘Aspects aren’t standards.’

  ‘They affect them. And the moment you stop believing in the Jealous God and the Laws of Moses, you lose sight of land. After that it’s every man his own navigator. You talk of responsibility. We’re responsible for ourselves, to ourselves, and no one else. And for any children we may happen to have – a marginal responsibility, anyway. Putting the kids first has done far more harm to far more kids than it’s ever done good. I know all about that one. I had a self-sacrificing mother.’

  ‘You’re something of a bastard,’ Andrew said, ‘aren’t you?’

  ‘In both senses of the word, as a matter of fact. That’s probably what made her so self-sacrificing. I’m also something of a realist.’

  Andrew said stiffly: ‘I couldn’t be expected to know …’

  David laughed. ‘I wasn’t trying to embarrass you. And I’m not trying to make excuses. The kids didn’t come calling after me in the street. She’s fairly well off, and she passed as a young widow. I didn’t know the truth until I was at Oxford, and I wasn’t particularly impressed by it when I was told. After a careful weighing up of the odds, I’ve decided that it’s not just bastards who are out for themselves. The practice is universal.’

  ‘There are rules, and some people stick to them.’

  ‘Maybe. But no two people follow the same set. And where do the rules come from? There can’t be many who still swallow the idea of the golden tablets on the mountain. We make our own up. And we respect the laws of the land, of course. But take the policemen off the streets, and what happens?’

  ‘Some people will behave badly. So the rest, the majority, have to form another police force.’

  ‘Yes. To keep their quiet life. To make sure they can sleep peacefully at night. Not for the abstract good, Andy.’

  He had a frankness, a sincerity, which was disarming; it was impossible, in his presence, to persist in disliking him. He looked at Andrew now, almost with a boyish innocence, and said:

  ‘I am going to go on seeing you, aren’t I? Not just for sorting out the practical details.’

  There was something else. David was his sole link with Carol – to cut adrift from him was to lose any possibility of having news of her.

  He said: ‘McKay reverted to the subject this morning. He’s heard rumours that the Government is taking the Fratellini Winter more seriously. He asked me to see if there was anything I could get out of you.’

  The motivation behind McKay’s introduction had come out at an early stage in their acquaintance.

  David said: ‘As long as we carry on meeting, I don’t mind what the justification is. I think the rumour probably refers to the Fuel & Power boys. They’re anxious to make sure there’s no repetition of the ’47 crack-up. We’re buying American coal to stock up with.’

  ‘Is there any more news of the drop in radiation?’

  ‘Nothing exciting. It is dropping. The Americans are hoping to get some information from their new series of satellite probes.’

  ‘But no one’s worried?’

  ‘I believe the Coal Board’s delighted. They had a very heavy overstock and they’ve just about worked through it with extra orders. And have you noticed the way Oils have jumped?’

  ‘It’s an ill wind, isn’t it?’ With a faint reversion of bitterness, he said: ‘That cold’s only unpleasant when you’re out in it unprotected. I suppose it’s quite fun when you’re looking out from a nice warm room at the poor shivering devils outside.’

  There was a pause before David said: ‘I don’t think it’s like that, Andy.’ He lifted up his tankard to show that it was empty. ‘How about buying me the other half?’

  The children came home for half-term, and Andrew took them out two afternoons; the rest of the time they spent with Carol. It was only in seeing them off from Waterloo station that they joined forces.

  Boys from a public school were going back on the same train; the windows were crowded with young male faces, f
rom eight to eighteen, the platform studded with groups of parents. Andrew, who had himself gone to a grammar school, from a poor home, remembered seeing such a train-load when he was about thirteen, and noting their pink-and-white confidence. Now his sons conformed to the pattern: a triumph for environmental moulding. He wondered if they were happy; he supposed they were.

  Carol said: ‘You have my letter to give to Matron?’

  ‘I think so,’ Robin said. ‘Somewhere.’

  ‘Better look.’

  He searched his pockets and produced it.

  ‘Toffee,’ Carol said. ‘No, it won’t wipe off. Keep it in that envelope till you get to school and then put it in a clean one.’

  In a resigned tone, Robin observed: ‘She’ll think I’ve been spying on what you’ve written if the envelope has my handwriting on it.’

  ‘Of course she won’t. There’s nothing private in it. It’s only about your booster shots.’

  Jeremy said: ‘Matron’s a living horror.’

  ‘She’s devious,’ Robin explained.

  ‘Show her the toffee-stained envelope,’ Andrew said, ‘and explain it all.’

  ‘Probably make her even more suspicious,’ Robin said. ‘Still, one can but try. I think we’re about due to go.’

  Carol put her face up and was dutifully kissed. Andrew’s hand was shaken.

  ‘Be good,’ Andrew said.

  ‘You, too.’ A spasm of inquiry crossed Robin’s face. ‘I suppose we’d better write to both of you, hadn’t we? I mean, separate letters?’

  ‘You can drop an extra line to me when you find time,’ Andrew said. ‘To the studios, since I’m still unsettled.’

  Robin nodded. ‘Sure thing.’

  As they left the platform, Andrew said: ‘We’re lucky to have such understanding children.’

  ‘Yes.’

  He handed in the platform tickets. ‘Do you feel like a drink, before we go our ways?’

  She looked at him with some uncertainty. ‘Well …’

  ‘It’s all right. I promise not to drug your gin and tonic.’

  She smiled. ‘All right.’

  They walked separated by a distance that had to be consciously gauged: far enough apart, but not so far as to be conspicuous. His hand touched hers accidentally, and he choked down an apology as he pulled it back. All this was good training, Andrew reflected, in grasping the essential ridiculousness of life.

  He brought their drinks to a small table near the door of the Buffet. It was not very clean, and carried an overflowing ash-tray. At the next table, a large woman coped noisily with three large children.

  ‘Is there any British Railways terminus that has a place where one can sit and have a drink in civilized comfort?’ Andrew asked. ‘I think I hate railway stations.’

  Carol said: ‘I hope we can be friends eventually, Andy. It’s just that I feel that depends on the break now being a pretty sharp one. If we see much of each other at present, you’re bound to show you resent things.’

  ‘And not seeing you stops my resenting?’

  ‘No. It stops you showing it.’

  ‘That makes a difference?’

  ‘I can reproach myself better than you can reproach me. Not as harshly, perhaps, but better from the point of view of my going on admiring and liking you.’

  ‘That’s very important. You’ve no idea how important that is.’

  ‘Now,’ she said, ‘you’re showing it. I am being selfish, aren’t I?’

  She was wearing a blue jersey suit that matched her eyes; it was high-necked and clung softly to the outlines of her breasts. The scent she had on was an unfamiliar one. Presumably David had given it to her. Each day her life took a step away from the one they had shared; each day the pattern shifted further.

  ‘I’m seeing David. Isn’t that where the resentment would come out most? Or do you think in this happy future you have planned I can be friends with you and not with your husband?’

  ‘I leave that to David to sort out. But I don’t think resentment would bother him as it would me. And I don’t think you would be able to keep it up against him for very long.’

  Andrew recognized the truth of that.

  ‘Unprincipled charm,’ he said. ‘What every woman wants.’

  ‘There you are. If I reacted to that, it would be angrily. David would be able to make a joke out of it. He’d probably make you laugh, as well.’

  There had been some idea in his mind of making an approach to her. Nothing explicit or emotional – a sounding-out as to whether passion might not be dropping a degree or two from its high fever; a reassurance, no more than hinted, that there was still a way back. He saw how useless this would be, and remained silent.

  Carol said: ‘I’m glad you and he are seeing each other. And that you’re seeing Maddie.’

  She was using David’s diminutive for Madeleine; just another small thing gleaned from the closeness which left him outside. He was not sure if he loved her, but he had never wanted her more than at this time. He thought of the first time he had seen her, at a summer party, wearing a red organdie dress, and flirting with Steve Wiltshire who was, someone had told him, her lover. He could remember desire, and the bitter jealousy, and the awareness that, in every way he could imagine, she was out of his class. It was far worse now.

  With dull sarcasm, he said: ‘Everything’s working out for the best, isn’t it?’

  Carol got up, pulling on silk net gloves.

  ‘This doesn’t do any good, though, Andy. I must be going. Thanks for the drink.’

  6

  There was a blizzard early in November and, while the snow still lay unthawed in gutters and gardens, another, fiercer and colder. Later the snow was gentler, less urgent, but more persistent. Towards the end of the month there was a fall which lasted, with very little intermission, for forty-eight hours. The temperature fell below zero, and stayed there. The rush-hour trains and buses crawled painfully in and out of London over ribbons of snow and ice. Stocks of coal dropped sharply, and there were exhortations, in the press and on television, to economize on fuel. December began with a week almost free of fresh falls and lit for brief spells by a watery sun; but only a surface layer melted during the afternoons, to freeze once more with the grey fall of evening. After that the snow came down again.

  Once over the initial shocks and discomforts, people got used to the new conditions. Traffic began to move more freely: for the roads an operation was launched which brought gravel-scattering trucks into the cities in the early mornings, while on the railways mobile gangs kept the lines clear and the points and signals free from frost. Oil shares boomed on the London Stock Exchange as the laid-up tankers put to sea again, siphoning the world’s oil surplus northwards. In their lunch-hours, office workers skated on the Serpentine and the lakes in the royal parks; officials who tried to stop them were brushed aside. Christmas approached and the song, ‘White Christmas’, plugged at first, was quietly dropped. Even at the lowest level of commercial sentimentality, there was no magic left in the idea of snow. The new pop favourite, which surged to the top of the Hit Parade and stayed there, was a translation of a German ballad, resurrected from the dark days of the Second World War:

  All our troubles are rolling,

  Rolling, rolling away –

  Although there is snow in December,

  There’ll always be sunshine in May.

  One heard the wistful little tune everywhere.

  Carol was to have the boys for Christmas, and Andrew for the New Year. Until the morning of Christmas Eve, he thought she might ask him to join them for the day itself, for the dinner anyway, but there was no message. During the afternoon, though, Madeleine telephoned him at the studios.

  She said: ‘If you have any other plans, don’t hesitate to say so, Andy, but if you aren’t doing anything better, what about coming here tomorrow?’

  ‘You’ll be on your own?’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘It’s nice of you, Madeleine.
I think we should warm each other with the season’s cheer. But there’s no need for you to get tied up with cooking. We can go somewhere. How about the Dorchester? I’m told they do a very fair Christmas dinner.’

  ‘No, we’ll have a heavy lunch here. The bird is bought and prepared. Come round about twelve.’

  ‘I’ll be there.’

  There was a small hesitation, before she said: ‘If you want to cancel – if anything crops up – just give me a ring.’

  ‘I shan’t want to cancel. See you tomorrow.’

  Andrew took two bottles of champagne with him. The door was, as usual, on the latch, and he went in. From the direction of the kitchen, Madeleine called:

  ‘Who is it?’

  He found her busy in an apron, her pale face slightly flushed.

  He said: ‘Sorry if I’m early. I thought I’d better give these time to cool.’

  She smiled. ‘Lovely. Pop them in the fridge and then go and find yourself a drink. I’ll be clear in half an hour.’

  ‘I’ll bring drinks in here for both of us.’

  She said warningly: ‘I’ll probably find things for you to do.’

  ‘I’ll risk that.’

  When he came back, he said: ‘Yesterday – you knew I wasn’t going round to Dulwich?’

  Madeleine took the drink from him. She looked at him directly, her brow creased in a slight frown.

  ‘I’d spoken to David. He said Carol was planning to be on her own with the children. He suggested that if you weren’t coming here, he should.’

  Andrew put his drink down. ‘You could have cancelled this, you know. I wouldn’t have minded.’

  ‘This was before I rang you. I told him I’d asked you to come.’ She smiled. ‘Isn’t it strange? I find I can lie to him now. I never could before.’