The Devil in the Snow

by Sarah Armstrong

  Shona filled the kettle. ‘Why didn’t anyone wake me?’

  ‘We didn’t know if you wanted to be woken,’ said Maynard. He stirred the pasta in the saucepan.

  ‘That isn’t for you, is it, Cerys?’ said Shona.

  ‘You usually eat with Jude,’ Cerys said. ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘I left yours in the oven.’

  Cerys didn’t reply. Shona sat next to her but Cerys shifted away and kept her eyes on Maynard.

  ‘How was your day, Cerys?’ Shona asked.

  ‘Fine.’ Cerys yawned and left the room.

  Maynard drained the pasta into the colander. ‘I’ll leave some for her, in case she comes back.’

  Shona put her head in her hands.

  ‘She’s a teenager, you can’t take it personally.’

  ‘I’m not. I’ve got a headache.’

  The kettle clicked off. Shona pushed her chair back but Maynard got the mugs from the cupboard and put the tea bags in.

  ‘Why are you here?’ she asked.

  ‘The trade fair went well,’ he said. ‘I just thought I’d come home for a couple of days.’

  ‘I know all about it. Your mother phoned.’

  ‘Yes, about that. Could you at least pretend to know where I am when she calls you? Or care?’

  Shona put her head back in her hands. She could hear him pouring the water, the snap of the jar and then the smell of the pesto as he spooned it on top the pasta.

  ‘Have we got ham?’

  ‘No.’

  He went back to the mugs, took the bags out and added the milk. He pulled the cutlery drawer open and rattled through it. He stood next to her and waited until she raised her head before putting the mug down in front of her.

  ‘Don’t you want to know about the Bouts painting? This is going to make me.’

  ‘Not us, then?’

  ‘My reputation.’ There was a look of the young Maynard about him now, the swaggering tie-less student whose glasses were half as thick as those he now wore. His hair was fairly similar, no grey or baldness yet, just sensibly short with a slight quiff at the front. He used to laugh.

  ‘It’s not often that a new piece is discovered from the fifteenth century. It’s a big deal. I’ll show you.’ His briefcase and travel bag were on the far chair at the table. He sat down, ate a mouthful of food and started to sort through the papers. He pulled out two laminated pictures, both of Madonna and child.

  ‘I mean, he’s notoriously problematic but just look at the similarities. The sleepy eyes, the fingers and the high foreheads, the use of perspective. The deep blue dress and red shawl, that’s common. And of course it was found in Leuven. All these people who don’t search their attics before they move, it’s incredible, but it keeps them safe for centuries.’

  Shona compared them. The babies were so old and young simultaneously, about six months, or a small nine months? The legs showed lines of plumpness, the feet were tensely pointing toes upright. The mothers’ mouths were equally smug and indulgent but the eyes were full of long-lashed adoration.

  Shona pushed the pictures back towards him. He wasn’t going to say anything about the house. Either Cerys had been lying or he was waiting for Shona to ask.

  ‘This really isn’t working, Maynard. You can’t come and go as you please. We need a clean break and we need more space. Either I have the front room as a bedroom or I need a loan for the loft. This is my home and it hasn’t been yours for a long time. Cerys is old enough to visit you now and you’ve got your flat. Just give me the house. That must be a fair split, or even in your favour. Whatever it is, we need to draw a line under everything.’

  He sat back hard in his chair, looking ready to beat her down with reasoned negotiation of his needs and desires. ‘We agreed, until Cerys was eighteen.’

  Shona held onto the mug, her palms burning. ‘That was before you got your own flat. I don’t go into your flat. I don’t even know where it is. I think we need to just split things down the middle and you don’t come into my house any more.’

  ‘It’s not fair. You were never fair about this. It was just one of those things. I’m sorry it happened,’ he whispered. ‘Sorry. You have no idea. But you don’t get the house.’

  Shona blinked hard and looked at the table. ‘Things have changed since we agreed. I’m divorcing you.’

  ‘You?’ Maynard’s voice was artificially loud, as if he wanted Cerys to hear at the other end of the house. ‘You’re the one who brought someone’s bastard into my home and made an exhibition of yourself in public, humiliating your daughter in her school. And don’t think that no-one noticed. Everyone knows. You move some kind of Greek god into the shed—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m talking from Cerys’ perspective here, not mine. You’re the one who poisoned everything we had.’ He threw his chair back, emptied his dish into the bin and dropped the dish into the sink. ‘You took our tragedy and made it into your own private philosophy where I’m the evil baddy and you’re the poor wronged woman. It wasn’t like that and you don’t have more rights than me when it comes to Cerys.’ He sighed and looked down at his hands. ‘You’ve made it quite clear that we can’t share the house, as we agreed. First the bastard, then the mad boy. You’re intent on filling my house, which I let you live in with Cerys. Only Cerys. God knows you had trouble looking after one, but three? Look at this shit hole.’ He pointed at the sink, the clothes falling out of the dryer, the bin so full it didn’t close. ‘So I’ll have to sell.’

  ‘You’ve done it again! You’ve made it look like I forced you to make a decision you’d already made. I belong and Cerys belongs. She is at school, she has friends. She can visit you.’

  ‘Who says she wants to stay with you? Who do you think she’d choose? She hates you. She thinks you’re a slut. I think you’re a slut.’

  The door to the back room banged open and Jude leapt into the kitchen with his space gun. He aimed it at Maynard and mimed shooting him repeatedly in the head. Maynard stepped towards him, grimacing.

  ‘Get out!’

  Jude kicked at Maynard’s legs and Maynard raised his hand.

  ‘Stop!’ Shona pulled Jude towards her and hid his head with her arms. ‘You were going to hit him!’

  ‘He deserves it.’

  ‘Did Meghan?’

  He gasped. ‘Shona!’

  ‘Just fuck off, Maynard.’

  He slammed the kitchen door behind him, then the back room door, then the front room door.

  Shona held onto Jude until he stopped shaking.

  ‘Shall I make you some milk?’

  He nodded and wiped his nose on his sleeve.

  ‘You’re very brave, Jude. We’ll look after each other, won’t we?’

  ‘I’ve got the gun though.’ He held it to his chest.

  Shona poured the milk into a mug and heated it in the microwave. She watched Jude drink it, his body tensed for Maynard’s return. Cerys loved Jude, Shona was sure she did. She’d seen them cuddle on the sofa and, for every complaint that Jude had been in her room, there was a secret chat under her duvet. Cerys wouldn’t leave him, even if she had nothing to say to Shona. And Maynard had clearly forgotten that Shona had something on him that meant he couldn’t do this to her. She’d kept the clippings about the cyclist.

  5

  October

  The gatehouse was always cold and she hadn’t had any time to adjust, autumn having suddenly arrived over the weekend. She didn’t usually have to spend too long there. She had all of her identification checked and, after the first six visits, had remembered to leave her mobile outside. Today it was in the glove compartment of Mariana’s car which didn’t have gloves in it, or anything else. The entire car was so clean and bare that Shona felt she had dirtied it just by being in there and had decided she would take it through the car wash before returning it. It was a nice change from trains and taxis.

  Now, with her presence checked and noted, she sat on a cold chair in a colder room to
wait for an escort. Her canvas bag warmed her lap a little. Officers pressed the buzzer on one door and, if the other was closed, it would open. If it was open, they would hesitate self-consciously in front of the camera.

  At the glass-enclosed office they would slip coloured discs into the hole and get a set of keys, or return the keys and clip the discs back on a key ring hanging off their belt. The men tended to be older than the women but there wasn’t a uniform look to the build or faces of the stream of people. That had always surprised Shona, expecting to be able to recognise a physical sense of ‘them’ and ‘us’. It was only the clothes which signalled who belonged where, and the guilty verdict.

  ‘When the gods intervene, it is love that wins, not justice.’ Shona had sent the essay on Apollo to Rob the day before, but she hadn’t stopped thinking about it. The more she discovered the more she recognised him: the bearer of prophecy, healing, truth and light, the classic beardless athletic youth, lover of men and women. It felt as if she was reading about Kallu. It was stupid, but she couldn’t shake the ways they linked. The bringer of life, and death too. Murderer of Achilles, the god who cursed Cassandra, who, together with his hunter twin, Artemis, had slaughtered Niobe’s children.

  Shona shivered, rubbed her gloved hands together and stood up again. She had to wait until one of the three women and two men decided to talk to her, even though they saw her straight away. The older woman, long grey hair strung back, lifted her eyebrows.

  ‘I was wondering when my escort will be here,’ said Shona.

  ‘I’ll check.’

  Shona sat down again. This was the third time of checking but this was part of being in prison, for visitors as well as inmates.

  She’d worried about leaving the house empty. She’d kept the front door bolted and taken the back door key, hoping Maynard didn’t have a copy. Every time she left the house to take Jude to and from school she wondered whether she would get back in or would Maynard have changed the locks. She would rather not have come today but it wasn’t an appointment that was easy to change.

  The far door opened: ‘Marks!’

  She responded to her name and followed the officer through the door. He didn’t look at her. There were a lot of officers here that seemed to believe that a prisoner should be isolated from the world for the duration of their punishment. His hair was clipped short, greying around the ears. His jacket stretched slightly across the back as he unlocked and locked each gate and door they passed through. Shona thought about the stress on his wrists of such repetitive movement, rubbing her own wrists in sympathy.

  The high fences were topped with old-fashioned and unnecessary-looking tumbling razor wire, each building with enough space around it for the wind to carve circles in the dust; so much air out there and so little in the overheated buildings.

  He opened the large outer door, locked it, opened the smaller inner door, locked it. Shona was left in her usual room. She knew where the panic button was, the nearest prison officer, the procedures for all types of crisis. What scared her was not what might happen to her but the possibility that she wouldn’t ever leave. With relief that she was finally in, she emptied her bag onto the table.

  Jimmy strutted past the officer, scrapbook and notebook under his arm. A recent haircut revealed his heavily lined forehead as well as the pattern of hairless scars, but he looked relaxed and happy. The blue jogging suit was clean, which was always a good sign. The officer closed the door.

  He looked at his watch. ‘Morning.’

  ‘It’s not my fault I’m late.’ Shona smiled. ‘You’re looking better.’

  ‘New mattress.’ Jimmy stretched his arms in a cartoon fashion above his head. ‘I’ve been moved to the new block they built. My own TV, toilet, it’s brilliant.’ He leaned over the table and lowered his voice. ‘Built like a piece of shit for that kind of money, though. If they asked us, we could give them a list of hundreds of faults. It won’t even be standing in ten years. I could be out and away in less than an hour.’ He sat up again. ‘But why would I want to?’

  Shona fiddled with her pen. ‘You sound quite settled for someone who’s nearly out.’

  He shook his head. ‘I’m just enjoying the last few weeks of being fed and clothed. Parole is never certain until you’re running out the gate.’ He pulled at the jogging top. ‘Can’t wait to wear something without zips. Anyway, you’re nearly sacked as my solicitor, my girl, so what is your parting gift?’ He opened his notebook and took one of the spare pens she had put on the table.

  ‘They’re all for you.’ She pushed the books towards him. ‘Two on della Francesca, one on Van der Goes.’

  ‘No Reni?’ he said.

  ‘Those weighed a ton, and they’re expensive too,’ she said. ‘I think you mean thanks.’

  He grinned. ‘Thanks, Shona. You’re my favourite niece. Only, but favourite all the same.’

  ‘How are you going to carry them all out? You’ll need a trunk.’

  ‘Ah, ask and you shall receive.’

  He lifted his hand to the scars on his head as he flicked through the plates. Shona sat back, watching him. Considering he’d been sentenced for ripping off little old ladies by undervaluing their family art works, she had never been surprised that he only asked for books on painters. If she’d known what weights she’d shift over the years, she might not have agreed so readily. She hadn’t been involved in his defence, hadn’t even attended his trial, it being when it was. But it hadn’t been the first. The last time she had been in a room with her mother, her uncle and Maynard was at her own wedding reception. Jimmy had kept a low profile after that and since this last sentence her mother had disowned him, for good this time apparently. Maynard refused to hear his name spoken. Shona had missed him, her funny, complicated uncle.

  At seventy-two he looked at least fifteen years younger, his eyes bright and hair still thick and dark. His mouth drooped a little at the sides when he was concentrating, but in conversation he always looked a little amused.

  Shona checked her watch. ‘Really, are you all sorted for when you leave? Do you need somewhere to live, or need a lift?’

  He waved his hand. ‘All sorted.’

  ‘I can pick you up.’

  He shook his head. ‘I’ll get my address to you when I’m settled.’ He kept his head down but she was sure he was grinning. The smile faded. ‘Your mum never visited.’

  Shona adjusted her bag on the table. ‘No. She still doesn’t go out much.’ She opened a book and flicked through it.

  ‘No.’ He looked up. ‘Do you think she’d like to hear from me?’

  Shona looked up from the open book. ‘Yes. Write to her. It can’t hurt.’

  He looked down again but Shona guessed he wasn’t concentrating any more.

  ‘Do you have a favourite?’

  ‘So many. There is so much art in the world that I would kill to hold in my hands and just breathe it in. And then, I’ve seen so many paintings of things that the painter didn’t believe in. You can tell in every stroke.’ He narrowed his hand as if it was holding a paintbrush. ‘Art is fantasy, life is fantasy and politics is the biggest fantastical invention of all. I’ll stick with art, I think, where I can see the lies.’

  ‘Is this research?’ she asked quietly. ‘Are you going back into the same kind of business?’

  ‘Business?’ He laughed. ‘Shona, such euphemisms.’

  ‘My mother—’

  His eyes flickered. ‘Don’t. Some things can wait.’

  Shona picked up her papers and pens and slowly started to put them back in her bag. ‘So you definitely have somewhere to go? They’re not going to find an excuse to keep you in here?’

  ‘Six weeks and I’m out, don’t you worry about that.’ He smiled. It nearly reached his eyes. ‘How’s Maynard?’

  Shona shrugged. ‘Same as ever.’

  ‘He’s got a lot going for him, but you’re right not to trust him.’

  ‘You know why I don’t.’

  ‘Bu
t that’s not what I mean. It’s not about the baby. You need to get a divorce and move as far away as you can.’

  ‘Why? It’s my house. I’m staying, whatever he thinks, and he can leave me whenever he likes.’

  ‘And he won’t. You’re the one who has to take control of this, Shona. He’ll still have to see Cerys and all of that stuff but you need to put some distance between him and you for your own good.’

  ‘Emotionally?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid. He’ll drag you down when he falls, and he’s got a long way to plummet.’

  ‘I’m not going, and he’s not dragging me anywhere.’

  ‘There’s something he’s still after from you, Shona. I know more than you think.’ Jimmy frowned. ‘Sometimes being stubborn is the most fucking stupid thing you can be. You should know that, you’ve had enough practice.’

  Shona snapped, ‘You’re the one who’s locked up!’

  Jimmy gathered his books together. ‘I’m ready to go back to my cell now.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘It’s OK. It’s true, but not for long.’ He winked at her. ‘See you on the outside.’

  Shona checked her phone when she got home; three missed calls from Rob. She still had thirteen days to complete the Tower for him but he liked to keep an eye on her progress. She reminded him that he wasn’t her teacher but it was his name on the contract and he did it anyway. She texted him a reassuring, and made-up, word count.

  There was also text message from Kallu: ‘Are you free?’ Since Maynard had called him a Greek god it had got stuck in her head. ‘My little Apollo,’ she murmured, and laughed, embarrassed by herself. She’d check on him later.

  The phone started to beep and she left it to charge on top of the bread bin.

  It was time that she got started on the Tower essay, she supposed. Forty pages was over three pages a day, quite achievable unless she found that she actually wasn’t interested in the subject after all. That had happened before and she had forced out an essay on Icelandic sagas in two solid nights of writing. Freud too proved to be a great disappointment, but luckily that had only been ten pages.