After the Snow

by Crockett, S. D.

  “All right. Move on!”

  The canvas come down. Policeman bang on the truck. The engine roar up and we move off.

  Just like that.

  “Don’t you bloody talk to me like that”—the old man cough—“you gonna get his coat yourself, that’s what I reckon. DON’T YOU TRUST THAT BLACK DOG, BOY! He’s going to have the skin off your back.”

  “Shut up, Reuben,” say Rose.

  “He’ll have the skin off your back”—but the old man break up with coughing again.

  The black man don’t say nothing. I can’t see him, just his boots in front of me on the floor of the truck.

  And his big strong hand reach down and get me up.

  “You’re inside the settlement,” he say. “Better look out for yourself.”

  PART II

  THE CITY

  This is the place: these narrow ways, diverging to the right and left, and reeking everywhere with dirt and filth. See how the rotten beams are tumbling down, and how the patched and broken windows seem to scowl dimly … Narrow ways, diverging to the right and left … where neither ray of light nor breath of air appears to come.

  —Charles Dickens, American Notes

  19

  The flap come up on the back of the truck and the driver shout, Everyone get out!

  I got to jump down with the others. My feet land hard on the ice. Mary tight behind me. I see the shacks and tents stretching out all around. Choking smog hanging over it all. The smog just drape itself over everything. And the smell of smoke and the stench of animals and shit and rubbish knock right back in my throat.

  Wooden poles lean every which way along the edge of the street, power lines sag between them. A few dim lights swing in the wind above the trucks. The snow been heaped up into great banks along each side of the roadway. Above us the blank inky sky never ending.

  We been in a great line of trucks smoking and rumbling along the side of the road. Out the back come a tired stream of people with deep canvas hoods pulled over their heads. The breath rising up from those people in the thin smoggy light been like terrible steam drifting about their heads. Their boots tramping down on the cold dirty snow, no one talking much, and I been one of them—cold and tired from sitting for hours on that hard wooden bench.

  “Hey!” An old man pulling a wheelbarrow piled high with boots push past, shouting, waving his arm. “Hey, out of the way!”

  Tramping right beside us is a thickset black and white horse pulling a creaking cart. The horse snorting in the cold air. On the cart people sit up under a canvas roof wrapped in heavy woolen cloaks and capes. The driver shout out at the stream of men and women all about. A little girl clinging on to the rail at the back stare at me. Her mother pull her back under the cover. All around us been a thousand huts and tents built up from scraps of canvas and wood and old bricks and doors and metal sheets piled higgledy-piggledy like leaves when they fall. Bits of loose wood and sheets of metal hanging from makeshift shacks flap about as a cold wind gust down the street. It lift the cloak of an old woman leading a cow. The cow got a sacking blanket covering its back—cow just plodding slow in the gutter like it been blind.

  A truck come pushing out through all those carts and waggons and people, horn blasting. The cow scare and slip on the ice with a scared moaning sound. All those horses and wagons and carts got to move over quick then, and everyone been squashed up still further against the banks—aint no choice as the truck push through.

  We get off the road, jostled by the crowd through a gap in the snow into some kind of market alongside the street. A few lights swing wild overhead. Someone with a goat, shouting, Fresh milk, fresh milk, and chickens squawk in cages and rabbits held up by their ears and people stitching leather with big machines they turn by hand and women stirring steaming vats of soup over glowing barrels of coals and all about people pushing and shoving and grabbing and shouting and everywhere rubbish gray and filthy in the snowy night. And the smell of people and animals and smoke in my head like it just gonna burst open, cos I aint never seen so many people and things and heard so many noises or smelled so many strange and awful smells in all my life.

  Just feel like I’m a leaf that fall in the river, and the river gonna sweep me out to sea any way it want as that tide of men and women wash out among the tents and streets of the shanties like the waters at Barmuth flooding into the estuary.

  “Willo!”

  Mary nearly swept out with the crowd, but I grab her shoulder, and she find me crouching flat against the bank of snow. The biggest place I ever been before is the Barmuth summer market. But Barmuth gonna fit in the pocket of this place.

  The street been strewn with cinders, gray and dirty underfoot. All along it tables and boxes and wagons are piled high with boots, rags, potatoes, bundles of hay, sacks of oats and salt, battered tins and glass bottles, bits of wood, piles of coal. Everything you can think of. Someone ride by on a stout pony with just a pack on their saddle—they been so close I can smell them. There’s a clanking and a shouting and the sound of too many people. A new gust of wind howl along the street and everyone dig themselves deeper inside their coats.

  Mary cling on at my side, whisper in my ear, “We’ve got to get away from here. Follow me.”

  When I been little, my dad take me down to a pool in the river. It been a really good summer cos the sun been shining warm and everyone got their coats off all month—I remember that cos Magda got them laid out on the table all week, unpicking the seams and smoking out the lice. The melt been and gone so the water in the pool aint been too freezing.

  My dad say, Willo, you got to learn to swim. I reckon I think he been mad cos people can’t swim. I mean, they can walk and jump and run, but Aint they gonna sink in the water, Dad? My dad say, No, they aint gonna sink, silly child. Cos you got lungs filled with air. Then I remember it pretty good cos he take all his clothes off.

  I can see the skin on his neck and hands all dark against his thin white body, with the grass poking up around his bare feet. He go to the pool and dip his foot in. I can see it been pretty cold cos he pull it out quick. Then he do something I aint never forget. He just hold his nose and take a breath and jump straight in.

  I tell you I been screaming out then cos I think my dad gone forever and been drowned in the river but no—he come up all of a sudden. His head pop up, and he been gasping for breath and making funny noises like, Ooh, ooh, ooh, but after a bit his breathing calm down and he been moving his arms about and start swimming around that pool like a goose. And I got a laugh up inside me then, maybe cos I been a bit scared to start with, but he look proper funny all white and making strange noises and laughing sometimes and ducking down under the water to frighten me. But then he say, You got to come in, Willo. Get your clothes off and jump in. You’ll be all right.

  I aint never been so scared. Aint no way I’m gonna throw myself into that freezing dark pool like my graybeard dad. Cos I know I’m just gonna sink right down to the bottom, and my heart been beating and I run away onto the hill and my dad come out all dripping wet and shouting after me but I aint gonna come down til he forget about teaching me to swim.

  And now I got the same feeling when Mary say, Follow me. I been frozen with fear. Stuck against the side of the street. Those crowds of people terrify me like that freezing pool—I just know they gonna suck me under. I think on what my dad say about all the dark bad things just waiting in the shadows of the city after the troubles come. Dad say, You lucky you aint been alive then, Willo.

  Mary reach for my hand, and I look at her proper scared. This girl got something soft in her eyes.

  “Come on, Willo, we’ve got to get away.”

  “I don’t want to,” I say.

  But there aint no hills to run and hide in here.

  “Come on.” She pull on my arm.

  I got to do it. Take a deep breath. Close my eyes and jump. Throw myself out into the stream of bodies.

  “Come on,” say Mary again.

  An
d I do it. The swirling river of people swallow me up, crashing about me and bashing against me. A sea of people—and Mary leading me along, off and away between the tents. Between the piles of rubbish and dirty snow. I follow her, hurrying along dark pathways. Away from the crowds.

  “Keep close.” Mary pull me into the shadows. Now and then we pass someone slipping between the lanes like us but no one say a word. Two men fall bawling and angry through a doorway, and we dodge down a pathway away from them.

  “Where we gonna go?” I ask.

  Mary turn and stop for a second. “I’m not quite sure yet.”

  Far off on the dark horizon I see a craggy tower rising up from the smoky tents, black against the dingy sky. Dogs barking all about. Mary still trotting on.

  Cos the dog, he’s a wolf-dog

  He got cunning and clever

  Knows your hills and your valleys

  All roundside about.

  So this been the city.

  I aint swimming, Dad, but I aint drowned either.

  No I aint drowned yet.

  20

  The lights from the market been far behind us now. Mary hurry along the icy tracks and pathways between the shacks and tents. She’s just a small shadow in front of me in the dark. When she stop I see a flash from her eyes and she put a finger to her mouth. Listening.

  Far off a baby start to cry.

  I hear something else. Rising all around the settlement. Shouting. Muffled in the cold air. Far off—the banging of sticks. Now and then a wail rise up in the sky. There’s something animal in it that scare me right down to my guts.

  “Beetham gangs,” she say. “We’ve got to get away.”

  People in the shacks start coming alive around us, grunts and whispers—the noise of awakening—cos they hear the angry noises too. A sound like baying dogs.

  Far off a girl screech. But it aint a long screech—kind of cut short.

  “Down here.” Mary crouch beside a broken wall. The noise rear up now and then to the west—shouting and chanting and the beating of sticks on metal. Ahead of us something flare up above the tents. Someone padding quick down the path. They near stumble on top of us—woman with a child in her arms running like she been crazy. She don’t see us, and I hear her hard breathing as she run, fleet-footed, like a hare from a stoat, past us into some unknown darkness.

  It’s so dark you can’t see where you step. Mary pull me up.

  “Quick!”

  She been quicker than I think, ducking low here and there, swinging off away from the noise of the gangs. I pad behind her, jumping piles of rubbish between the broken huts, following the dirty warren of paths, fast as we can go.

  Soon the pathways widen out onto a snowy track. A scared dog come running up from behind, his scrawny haunches down and his tail between his legs. He give us a quick look and skitter past. Mary stop.

  “Rest a minute,” she say breathlessly.

  All around us great mounds of horse dung steam in the snow. Ahead there been a line of low wooden buildings along the edge of the track. A warm smell rise up from them.

  “Look.” She point over, and in the night air I see the breath curl around a pair of horses, their heads hanging over a rail across the open front of the shed. Other creatures rustle quiet in the stalls and a pair of goats jump up against the gate all curious. The smell of animal been sweet and rich on the air.

  “Me da was a ponyman,” she say.

  “What are the Beetham gangs?”

  “People you don’t want to meet.”

  “What are they?”

  “Just gangs on the grog. But shh.” Mary point into the dark.

  At the end of the row of animal pens a fire burning in a metal drum and a couple of people standing round, shapeless in their coats, holding hands out to the warmth, ragged tents sprawled around and about. A dog on a chain start to bark in our direction. Way off another dog reply and then another and another.

  “This way—”

  She slip away around the dung heaps and over a broken fence and we been out on another field deep in snow. There aint no shacks here, just a tall metal fence cutting across the ground and behind it plastic tunnels stretching out as far as the eye can see. The snow falling all around, but there’s a kind of steamy mist in the air like those tunnels been breathing. Along the fence been signs tied on with wire every so often.

  ANPEC PATROLLED KEEP OUT

  Mary skirt along the fence.

  “The ’lotments,” she say. “For growing food.”

  I stare. “How they gonna grow food in the winter?”

  “Wires in the ground, I reckon. Just potatoes and things, but you won’t get in. They got dogs and guards going to shoot if they see you.”

  “Where we going?”

  “Over there’s the city.” She point way off over the field.

  Mary seem to know this place roundside about, and I wonder if she been living in one of those sorry smoking tents hunted by the bad people before her dad take a pony and get her up on the Rhinogs. I look up and the freezing wind catch my breath and coil around my neck. Ahead of us on the northern side of the ’lotments been a darkness in the night sky, solid shapes against the horizon.

  “Hurry up, Willo, this way.”

  I aint got time to stop and think if it been a good idea just following this girl cos we got behind a lonely row of houses now, cold and dark, a great row of houses like the trees in the plantation. Some of the houses got a bit of light behind the boarded windows. The snow been thick on every roof and piled up high in great banks. A woman pass by down between the buildings. No one gonna say a word though and we shrink away from any strangers passing in the night like they been ravens scrieking and quartering over the Farngod.

  Mary stop walking, look about, beckon with her arm, and I follow her, scrambling down a steep bank thick with snow beside the track. At the bottom the ground level off to a tolerable path alongside a great empty trench twenty feet across. Steep walls fall down into the dark. The ditch disappear off in both directions, deep and wide, almost like a river.

  “What is it?” I ask Mary.

  “The old ship canal. Goes west all the way to the sea. Empty now.”

  Ahead of us a bridge arch up among some trees, and far off on the edge of the path, a lantern hang down from the front of a house lighting a sign. It say, THE KING WILLIAM.

  “Come on,” Mary say. She point at the building.

  “What is it?”

  “The King Will. Beerhouse. Me da used to go down the rat pit there. If Vince is there, we’ll get some food.”

  “Who’s Vince?”

  “You’ll see, come on.”

  I been proper hungry it’s true. But I wish my dog gonna tell me what to do. I call out to him quiet in my head. Good clever dog, where you been, what you gonna do?

  But the dog keep quiet. Reckon he run off quick and clever before he get stuck under the stinking fog of the city.

  “Come on, Willo, it’s safe, I promise. And there’s a storm coming.”

  Mary been right, I can taste it on the wind.

  And I step down the path in the shadows behind the beerhouse to a dark wooden door. Mary put her hand on my arm. “It’s all right.”

  She push open the door.

  In the corner is a woman dealing out cards. She turn and look at us. She’s old, wearing a long thick dress, tatty at the hem. The room aint bright, just candles burning here and there and a small fire in the corner. Along the back wall been a bar with a door behind it. On the left a bench and a scarred old wooden table like at home. On the wall behind the woman, there’s a picture of a dog standing all brave, and underneath it say, THE KENTISH BITCH.

  Mary say, “We want soup,” to anyone and no one.

  “Vince!” the woman sitting in the corner shout.

  A shutter in the door behind the bar slide open. A man’s face appear. He got a beaky nose and small dark eyes, glinting through a grille.

  “What?”

  “Childr
en. They want soup.”

  The man look at me suspicious. Then he see Mary.

  “Mary. I aint see your da,” he says. “He hasn’t been here for months. You got a message?”

  “It’s not me da I’m looking for. Just want something to eat,” say Mary. “Me and me friend.”

  The grille slide shut, but pretty soon the door open and the beaky face come out with two pails of hot soup in his hands. He clatter them down on the bar.

  “Two quid.”

  “Haven’t got any money,” say Mary.

  The beady-eyed man look me up and down. I see he been looking at my coat.

  “Your da should be at home looking after you kids. I aint seen him for a long while though. When you see him tell him, ‘The moths are on the wing.’ Tell him to come and see me. Where’s he been?”

  “Don’t know. Haven’t eaten in a few days.”

  Vince crease his forehead up. “All right. But give him the message, you hear. And watch out roaming about this time of night. Curfew won’t stop the gangs. Sit in the corner,” he say, scratching his ear with long fingernails.

  “What’s that about moths on the wing?” I ask Mary, but right then an old man get up from the bench where he been sitting in the shadows. He stumble up beside us and put some money down.

  “Another drink,” he say.

  This old man smell pretty bad. His shoes wrapped in rags. His face lined with wrinkles under his dirty graying beard and his eyes been dark holes under a slab of hair hanging down over his pocked forehead. He aint too steady on his feet either.

  “Another drink,” he say again, mumbling into his coat and banging a mug down on the bar. Vince don’t look too pleased but he fill the dirty mug with some sort of grog and the old man dilly-dally pulling imaginary things from his pockets then shuffle off back to the corner with his mug.

  “Don’t mind Piper,” say Vince. “He brought the rats down the pit for the dogs tonight. You two just sit quiet in the corner til you’ve finished your soup. Then—” He make a gesture with his thumb toward the door.