The Winter House

by Unknown

  ‘Floods – has it been raining a lot, then?’

  ‘Could say. Cigarette?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  Dot inserted one into the corner of her mouth but didn’t light it at once. She started the car, which snorted and rattled but pulled away, its headlights illuminating the narrow strip of road ahead.

  ‘Are you a friend of Ralph’s?’

  ‘Friend?’ A left turn onto a smaller road. ‘Hope he would think so.’

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’

  But Dot didn’t answer. She depressed the car lighter, waited for it to pop out again, then pressed the red-hot filaments to the tip of her cigarette. An acrid smell filled the car and smoke trickled out of her small, closed mouth.

  ‘Oliver said on the phone that he was dying.’

  ‘Not a doctor.’ This was practically a bark, accompanied by a baleful, smoke-stained glance.

  Marnie realized the woman was close to tears. ‘I haven’t seen him for years,’ she said softly, as much to herself as to Dot. The road was leading uphill now, onto a flat plateau where the wind buffeted the insubstantial vehicle. Though she could see little, she had the impression of land stretching widely away on either side. ‘I didn’t know he even thought of me any more.’

  Of course he thought of me, she told herself. If he’s in my mind, like a restless ghost, I should be in his as well. We can haunt each other.

  Dot didn’t reply. She leant forward over the wheel, cigarette held between the fingers of her right hand and smoke drifting in front of her weathered face. Marnie watched as the column of ash grew longer and finally crumbled into Dot’s lap.

  ‘Is it cancer?’ she asked eventually.

  ‘He’s very thin. Never was much flesh on him, but just skin and bones now. Skin and bones and that laugh of his. I don’t know how there’s room in his poor body for laughter, but there is.’ She turned her head sharply towards Marnie, as if she suspected her of being an impostor. ‘You know how he laughs?’

  ‘I do. Did.’

  ‘Giggles like a little boy.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Dot dropped her stub onto the floor and jabbed at the radio, which hissed and crackled, occasionally emitting a sharp burst of music. She turned the dial through equivalently nasty sounds, then turned it off again. Marnie took this as a sign that she did not want to talk – about Ralph or anything else. So she sat further back in her seat, her face sinking into the folds of her scarf, folded her arms for extra warmth, and looked out of the window.

  The moon was the vaguest glow behind the clouds now, and she could only make out shapes, occasional houses in the distance. Sometimes an overtaking car (their flimsy Rover whined up hills, its gear stick biting at Dot’s large hand) or one coming at them from the other direction would briefly light up the moorland. Sitting in this cold, smelly car beside the taciturn Dot, as they nudged their way through the vast darkness towards a dying man she no longer knew, Marnie was suddenly apprehensive. And something else, dark and heavy, made her chest ache. She felt homesick, she realized – not for her Soho flat, or for the Italian home she had made and then left, but more for her lost self, for her dead mother, her childhood spent in the ramshackle house near the sea where, when gales blew against the window at night, she would lie in bed and feel safe, bulwarked against the world.

  It began to rain, at first in large, occasional drops, then in a downpour that defeated the wipers, whose blades whipped back and forth, their rubber fraying. The rain clattered on the roof and sprayed up around the car wheels in violent arcs. It almost felt as though they were underwater. Dot leant further forward, her nose nearly touching the streaming glass and her big body seeming to press against the steering-wheel. She had another cigarette stuck between her lips at a surprising angle. The smoke leaked into her right eye and ash collapsed on her collar, specking her neck.

  ‘Do you want to pull over for a bit?’ Marnie ventured, when the car skidded on the road’s muddy verge for the third time, its wheels roaring frantically in the mud.

  ‘Quite safe,’ said Dot.

  Marnie didn’t feel safe at all, not in this tinny little car that seemed too light to hold the road, and not in herself. She pressed her forehead to the window and tried to find objects in the landscape that, in the darkness and the rain, looked more like an ocean than solid ground. Ralph had loved journeys such as this, when he didn’t know where he was going, but Marnie didn’t. She needed to plan things and always to be prepared. For a moment Ralph’s face – the face of long ago – flashed before her, and she had a powerful sense that she was travelling back in time, towards the self she used to be.

  The car bumped on through the night. Marnie shut her eyes. She let sleep creep up on her, felt herself sinking towards a dream in which Ralph appeared, wearing a jumper her mother had knitted for him. He was very young in this dream – just a child – and he was weeping copiously. She tried to hug him but suddenly he was no longer there and in his place was a stranger with a curled moustache and cold eyes, wearing a bow tie. He looked like Salvador Dalí, or a pantomime villain…

  Then she was back in the car, and Dot was beside her, leaning implacably over the steering-wheel. She blinked several times to get rid of the dream, and rubbed her eyes with her fists; they stung with tiredness and with the smoke that filled the car. She felt befuddled and had no sense of how long she had slept: perhaps the cigarette that Dot had clamped between her teeth was the one that had been there when Marnie had closed her eyes, or perhaps it was several cigarettes later. Outside, the landscape was the same, black and wet and empty.

  And then she must have fallen asleep again, for Dot was laying a hand on her shoulder and saying, in a loud but not unkind voice, ‘Marnie. Marnie, wake up. We’re here.’

  Marnie sat up stupidly, pushing escaped strands of hair back behind her ears. The car had stopped in front of a small, whitewashed house at the end of a rutted track. The upstairs windows were dark, but downstairs lights shone behind the closed curtains and smoke was coming out of the chimney. It was still raining, steadily drumming on the car roof.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. She was stiff with cold; her mouth was thick; she felt muzzy and quite unready for what lay ahead. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Quarter to seven, give or take. Can you manage your bag?’

  ‘You’re not coming in?’

  ‘Me? No.’

  ‘But I –’ Marnie stopped. What was there to say? ‘Thanks very much for collecting me,’ she said. ‘I appreciate it.’

  ‘Welcome,’ said Dot.

  ‘Before you go, tell me. Is he – no, I mean – I think I mean – will I recognize him?’

  Dot looked at her with her pale, unblinking eyes. ‘He’s your friend.’ She got out and held open the driver’s door for Marnie, who clambered across, gasping as the cold rain slapped her face, making her cheeks sting and her eyes water. She collected her bag from the back, then watched as Dot reversed back up the track and disappeared. Icy water ran down her neck; her hair was already soaked. She turned to face the house, which was as simple as a child’s drawing of home: very small and square, with two curtained windows upstairs and two down, a blue door, complete with knocker, in the middle. There was a birch tree with flaking silver bark to one side and on the other a woodshed, beyond which two small cars were parked nose to tail. She took a deep breath, picked up the bag and walked firmly up to the front door, avoiding the puddles that were collecting. She lifted her hand and hammered three times with the knocker, then stood back and waited.

  What did she expect – Ralph to tumble skeletally over the threshold? Oliver, with his grave, assessing stare? Instead a small, brown-haired woman, as neat and sweet as a songbird, opened the door and smiled. ‘You’ll be the friend? I’m the nurse. I’m just leaving now. Mr Fenton’s expecting you. He’ll be out shortly. Rotten night, isn’t it?’ And with that she was gone, flicking up a small umbrella, like a benevolent Mary Poppins, as she stepped over the threshold, leaving Marn
ie to walk into a narrow hallway. The door clicked shut behind her.

  Feeling quite unreal, almost dizzy with the oddness of it all, Marnie pulled off her gloves, unwrapped her scarf, took off her coat and hung it on a hook beside a jacket and waterproofs. She kicked off her boots, took a pair of old slippers out of her bag and put them on. The hall led directly on to the wooden staircase. On the left was a closed door, on the right a half-open one that gave on to what was clearly the main room of the house. Marnie walked cautiously into it, her slippered feet pattering softly on the quarry tiles.

  ‘Hello?’ she said softly. ‘Oliver?’

  The fire in the grate flickered, throwing a strange, guttering light. There was a deep armchair beside it, a book open face down on its seat, and on the other side a small, shabby sofa with a tartan rug folded over its back. Between them was a packing case that served as a table, and on it a bottle of whisky and an empty glass. There were piles of books on the floor, and also a laptop, whose green light was blinking. An improbably tiny kitchen was stuffed in under the beams at the end of the room: the stove, a metal, two-ring box above shelves of pots and pans, the sink piled with dishes, the small wooden table stacked with papers, magazines, letters, some of which hadn’t yet been opened, and an odd assortment of tools at one end – secateurs, pliers, thick gloves, a trowel with mud still clumped on its wedged blade, a ball of twine. On one of the chairs there was a small saw. By the side door a laundry basket overflowed with sheets.

  For a moment Marnie stood uncertainly, waiting. She thought she heard a voice from behind the other door, but it remained shut. Then she put another log onto the fire, went to the sink, rolled up her sleeves and started to tidy up. She stacked the dirty dishes on the table, scrubbed the draining-board, then ran a sinkful of water. When she was very small, her mother had stood her on a chair, tied an apron twice round her miniature frame, and instructed her on how she was always to wash glasses and cutlery, rinsing soap off everything, before moving on to mugs, plates, bowls, and finally pots and pans. She thought of her mother now, as she stood at the sink, arms up to the elbows in suds and steam rising into her face, which soon became warm and damp. When she felt lost in the world, as she did now, she would try to imagine what her mother would have done in her place, and sometimes experienced a ghostly sensation, like an echo ringing softly in her head, that she was occupying two lives at once, or that her own life was following the tracks her mother had laid down for her. Her feet in her mother’s footprints; her voice repeating the words her mother had spoken; her thoughts snagging on her mother’s presence, even though she was long gone and only came now in dreams and in memories.

  She lifted her hands out of the foamy water and looked at them: strong, with a single ring on her right hand, short, unpainted nails and wide knuckles; they were her mother’s capable hands, made for carrying and holding. If she could have seen herself at this moment in a mirror, her mother would be gazing steadily back at her. And ‘Marnie,’ she would say, in that low, clear voice of hers, which was also Marnie’s, ‘if you do something, do it with your whole heart or not at all.’

  ‘Marnie.’

  She swung round, scattering drops of water across the tiles. Her heart bumped painfully in her chest and her legs trembled, as if she was ravenous and needed to eat before she collapsed. ‘Oh,’ she said, hearing her voice rasp, feeling horribly shy and clumsy. ‘Hello, Oliver.’

  ‘Why on earth are you washing up?’

  ‘Because it makes it easier if I can feel useful.’

  ‘Useful?’

  ‘What? Why are you looking at me like that?’

  ‘You haven’t changed.’

  Marnie felt herself flush. ‘I have, you know.’

  ‘Of course. I didn’t mean it like that.’

  ‘No. It’s all right.’

  They stood at either end of the room, looking at each other warily, not sure whether to walk across and shake hands, hug each other, kiss the other’s cheek – for were they strangers or reunited friends? Would she have known him if she had seen him across a room or glimpsed him on the street? It was like looking at an image superimposed on an earlier one so that she took in both, but neither quite clearly. She saw his slim shape, boyish and long-limbed – but he was no longer slim: he was solid. His face, which Marnie remembered as gaunt, had filled out and lost its eager smoothness. There was still that small dimple in one cheek when he smiled, but there were new lines and creases, new pouches under his eyes. His brown hair was still tousled, but shorter than it used to be and already threaded with silver. His chin was metallic with stubble. He wore faded jeans and a pale brown jersey, round-necked and with torn sleeves. His feet were bare. Time had creased, rumpled and frayed him. And he looked tired, Marnie thought, weary, as though a weight had been placed on his shoulders, preventing him from moving with the easy grace he had once possessed. She stared at him, biting her lip, then ran her wet hands down her skirt, pushed her hair away from her face and crossed the room to stand in front of him.

  ‘So I came,’ she said, then stopped. It felt important not to blurt out foolish, unconsidered phrases. But what could she say? Years of unspoken words blocked her throat; she could only utter tiny, foolish fragments.

  ‘I was certain you would. Dot was there in time?’

  ‘Yes. Who is she?’

  ‘A neighbour. A lonely, cantankerous woman who loves her geese, her dogs – and Ralph, I guess.’

  With the mention of Ralph, she felt on surer ground. It was why she was here, after all – to see him. That was the important thing and nothing must get in the way.

  ‘She didn’t tell me what was wrong with him.’

  Oliver sighed and rubbed his hand over his face in a gesture so familiar to Marnie that she almost gave a small cry of recognition. ‘Listen, let me show you where you’re sleeping and then I can pour us a drink or something and we’ll talk about it.’

  ‘Is he in there?’ She nodded towards the closed door, just a few feet from where they stood.

  ‘He’s sleeping right now. He’s had a bad day and is all in.’

  ‘OK, then, show me my room.’

  He picked up her bag and she followed him up the steep, narrow stairs.

  ‘This is usually Ralph’s,’ Oliver said, ‘but we thought it best to put him downstairs, next to the main room, which is where he likes to spend most of his time.’

  ‘It feels wrong to be taking his room.’

  ‘Wrong?’

  ‘Too strange,’ she amended. ‘Too intimate and sad.’

  Oliver just looked at her. She could hear the words he wasn’t saying: this is strange, and this is intimate and sad.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘The sheets are clean, and there are spare blankets in the cupboard if you’re cold. The window looks out on to the loch. You’ll be able to see it in the morning.’

  ‘There’s a loch?’

  ‘Just a small one, hardly deserving of the name, at the end of the field. The bathroom’s opposite – the tank’s very small, I’m afraid. Not much hot water, but enough for a very quick shower. Shall I leave you to yourself for a few minutes? I’ll be downstairs.’

  ‘Fine.’

  They were being so polite with each other, so formal and careful.

  ‘Are you hungry? I’ve lost track of time.’

  ‘Now I come to think of it, I haven’t really eaten today. But I only need a piece of bread or something.’

  ‘I’ll make us a sandwich, shall I?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Marnie listened to him going down the stairs, pausing outside Ralph’s room before entering the living room. She pulled open the heavy curtains but could see nothing, only her face floating in the darkness. Watery night pressed against the glass like the sea, and she could hear the wind swelling round the small house; inside, the air felt thick and heavy. In the rippled light she took in the low bed, the knotted floorboards, the heavy wooden wardrobe, the charcoal sketch on the
white wall that she remembered well, a teapot with a crooked spout on the window-sill, and on the mantel above the small fireplace a photo from long ago that she couldn’t bring herself to look at – it was as if she was full to the brim with emotions, and the tiniest nudge would spill them over.

  There was a bookshelf made from planks and bricks along the length of the room and she made out some titles: a Riverside Shakespeare, a biography of Chekhov, a thick Guide to British Birds, and another to trees, Pablo Neruda’s love sonnets, a book about the Spanish civil war, an Italian dictionary. There were other books in piles around the floor: a Dickens novel, an anthology of poetry, a catalogue from the recent exhibition of Holbein’s paintings (Marnie had been to it: maybe they had been there on the same day and had stood back to back staring at the large canvases), a pamphlet about melting glaciers, a book about imaginary numbers, an instruction manual for making mobiles, a book of chess games, another of magic tricks for a beginner. For a moment it was as if the Ralph of random enthusiasms and sudden obsessions was in the room, face ardent with the need to convert her as well.

  A pair of shoes lay at the base of the bed. From where she sat, Marnie could see the darker smoothness rubbed into their inner soles by Ralph’s heels and toes. A white shirt sleeve was caught in the wardrobe door. A bathrobe hung from a hook, and on an impulse she got up and buried her face in it, wincing as she inhaled the smell, half familiar and half strange. For a moment, she could barely breathe and to comfort herself she pulled her mobile out of her shoulder bag to phone Eva, but there was no signal.

  Before going downstairs, perhaps as a way of delaying, Marnie unpacked the few things in her bag into the small chest. Most of the drawers were empty, only the top two containing a few T-shirts and some underwear. This she shut hurriedly, with a sense of intrusion. She took her toilet bag into the unheated bathroom, where she brushed her teeth and washed her face, first in hot water then cold. Then she made her way down the stairs, walking softly so as not to disturb Ralph.