After the Snow

by Crockett, S. D.

  There aint nothing I can do. The old man say I been lucky. But it aint luck. Aint no luck at all. Just chance. Wish I just come running down the mountain when I hear them all taken away. Magda shouting out like that. Wish I aint been sitting up on the hill with the spirit of the dog inside me, keeping me still and quiet hiding in the rocks. Wish I been taken away with them. All of us together.

  Seem like the dog been teaching me good things and bad things all mixed up together. But the dog just looking out for me. Aint his fault. He just been a dog. Looking out for number one.

  Everything go past. Pictures of my dad and Magda and Mary trailing behind me like logs on a string. It aint an easy life up on the mountain, but you been free up there. If you aint too stupid and been good with a snare and a trap you gonna be all right.

  Mary. Feel like she been the only person I got to look out for now. She got to be here in the city somewhere. Maybe if I find Mary I can take her back to the house. To the place low down in the hollow where the river pools out. Maybe Dad and the others gonna come back and we can turn over the little flat field by the stream and sow some oats after the melt. On the longdays of summer cut grass up on the Farngod. Mary can hunt eggs on the moor. We’ll hew a tree. Stack the sheaths of hay in the barn. Aint nothing gonna bring a smile to your face better than a barn smelling fat and sweet with bundles of fresh hay and dry logs stacked to the eaves at the end of summer.

  My dad tell me that he’s gonna die before someone take us down to the shanties and put us in some freezing tent. Reckon he been right about that cos this aint no place to live. Even Dorothy Bek-Murzin with her thousand candles and fires piled high with coal and food more than you need. I aint gonna want to be her no more than any of the people climbing in and out of trucks taking them off to the power plants and coal mines a long way under the pylons.

  But the old man been right. Don’t need no dog to tell me there aint nothing I’m gonna do about it right now. Dog run off back to the hills with his tail between his legs.

  Like I said. It aint his fault.

  That’s what dogs do.

  30

  After we get back home, Jacob and his wife talk all quiet together but I know it’s about me. He put the money in a place under the bed.

  Then his wife want to know why I got to get back to the mountains and the whys and wherefores of it all. I aint too bothered about them knowing. So I tell them most of the things which happen to me and why I got to be washed up in this city. About Mary and how I been trapped down in the canal.

  “You came into the city along the old canal?”

  Then they been mighty interested to know all about Geraint and my dad and Magda and our house up on the Rhinogs too. Those two old people ask me a lot of questions about how we live up on the mountain, what we gonna do for food in the winter and how we make rules and keep warm and get clothes and what we trap and how we cure skins and all the kind of stuff that seem pretty obvious if you ask me.

  “And you can read?” the woman ask.

  “We all got to do our reading. Graybeards decide that at the Meet.”

  They look at each other. “And you have books?”

  “We got books we find in the house and ones we find in other old houses up on the mountain. We got enough I reckon. To learn on I mean.”

  “But no permits, no papers?”

  “We aint got no papers. My dad want a license to farm. So we can sell stuff in the city. But we aint got one and Geraint got to sell the skins for us—”

  “Wait a minute, Willo.” Jacob take a knife from the table. He kneel down under the doorway, holding himself steady against the wall. Push the knife in between the floorboards, ease up a plank. He reach down into the hole and pull something out.

  “You’ve seen this before?” he say, holding out a book.

  He hand it to me.

  It’s big and heavy. I wipe the dirt and dust off the front. On the cover it say, IN SEARCH OF AN ARK by John Blovyn.

  “Open it up. Yes yes, open up the book.”

  I open it up. Turn the first page.

  “‘Now is the tenth winter.

  Our children are hungry.

  We have begun to fear our neighbors.

  Fellow men and women—the age of excuses is over. The time

  is made for action! You look for a sign, but it will not be given.

  Step up! Death stalks the streets.’”

  It been my dad’s book. The one he got in his box. Same words and everything.

  I turn the pages some more.

  It been the same book. Got the pictures of Eskimos and Scott of the Antarctic and all the stuff about making snares and curing skins and how you gonna help a baby into the world and all the other useful things you gonna need to know out on the mountain.

  But my dad’s book all tied together with string. Aint never known what it been called or who write it, cos Dad’s book aint got a cover no more. It been battered and all the pages thin and he aint gonna just let you turn them on your own. He keep it wrapped up safe, locked in his box.

  “You’ve seen the book before?” ask the old woman again.

  “We got one with the same words and everything.”

  “I knew it! Knew it from the moment I saw that coat.”

  “Know what?”

  “You’re a proper straggler.”

  “Yes, but how come you got the same book as my dad?” I ask. “How come you keep it all hidden up?”

  Jacob lean over and take the book gentle from my hands. He run his fingers over it. “We had dreams once.” He look up at me. “For some people this book is like a bible, Willo. But there are some—There are some who see this book as a call to arms. I’m too old for all that. But if they find this book in here we’ll all end up chipping stones at Ravenscar for sure.”

  “‘They’? Who are ‘they’?”

  “The ministry, the security police. You don’t want to meet them. No no.”

  The old woman lean forward in the bed. “Have you heard of the Island, Willo? Does it exist?”

  “No. I aint never heard of no island before.”

  The old lady lean forward even more. “So you stragglers don’t know anything?”

  “No. I don’t know nothing about no island.”

  “Have you read Blovyn’s book?”

  “Well. I … I aint read it all, just the bits my dad teach me. Like what I tell you. Interesting bits about how we got to be like Eskimos now and how to tie a snare good for catching hares. Those bits he show me.”

  Jacob turn the pages with his thin fingers. “Here. Mmm. Read this then. Yes, read this.”

  He hand it back to me.

  “Optimism! We must all share it. Around the fire. When we Meet. When we Tell. We must pass this gift to our children.

  They must become our Beacons of Hope. Our future. Their hands will be worn and rough, but their minds will be ready.

  Heed your own spirit. You will be weak if you follow where you are led. Remember this, a society that is unable to foresee its future is bound to perish.

  You must find sanctuary.

  My survivors. You the Disenchanted. My men and women and children of tomorrow. My sons and daughters. You listened when I said, ‘Come to the hills.’

  The biggest challenges are still to come.

  You must find your Ark. Build it strong. The Island has been abandoned. When moths are on the wing, reclaim it for yourselves. Make it yours. Come and build your shining Beacons of Hope for all to see. For all our tomorrows.”

  That old couple looking at me like those words got some kind of magic in them.

  “I don’t understand what it mean,” I say.

  “It’s simple. Anyone who has that book has read those words. They have read those words and are waiting. Yes, waiting for the time. Time to leave for the Island, Willo. The stragglers will leave for the Island. That’s what they say.”

  “Well, I aint never heard of no island. My dad never tell me about that. The man who write this
book, is he still alive?”

  “I don’t know, Willo. He could be. But if he is he’ll be hiding.”

  “Hiding? It’s just a book.”

  “John Blovyn said a lot of very controversial things. Mmm. He said truth was better than fear. Truth was better than fear. He told the people to think for themselves.”

  “Was he right? Do you think he been right?”

  “I don’t know, Willo. But it was the Chinese who built the nuclear reactors while we were putting up wind farms and solar panels that stopped working during the very first winter. Mmm. While we were shoveling snow and trying to keep warm. We need a new way. That’s what Blovyn said. Oh, yes. People listened to begin with.”

  “My dad say the snows gonna come anyway. No matter what we do. And he say they gonna go away again too. And we got to be hunters in the snow and beacons of hope til then.”

  “Well, he was a follower of John Blovyn then. That’s for certain.”

  “But why we got all the snow? You know that?”

  “Some people said it was all the cars, others said it was the planes. Some said it was the sun, others said it was nature’s way. But whatever they said—it did get warmer, mmm. The ice at the poles began to melt. And all that cold fresh water flowing into the sea slowed the warm currents in the Atlantic. And when that happened, when there was no more warm water flowing around, mmm? That’s when the snow started to fall and didn’t stop. At first it was just a few bad winters. Yes yes I remember that. But the snows kept coming. And the summers got colder. And shorter. All over Europe.”

  “It all came so quickly,” say the old woman.

  “Yes yes. And people began to panic. The roads covered in snow for most of the year. No one had planned for it, you see. No trucks or cars and no food in the shops and the power supply cutting off every day. The water freezing in the pipes. Mmm. Very bad times, Willo. And it hasn’t got any better.” Jacob get up, riddle the fire. He get that book wrapped up again, crouch down and hide it back under the floorboards.

  “We’re lucky to have survived,” say the old woman, clutching at the blanket.

  “Yes yes. They were very bad times. You’re lucky you weren’t alive then Willo. Mmm, very lucky.” Jacob got himself up from the floor, hand on his knee, pulling himself up on the door.

  “But what been so good about this Island? Where is it? Aint there gonna be people there already? And government making all the rules, same as here?”

  “Who knows?”

  “How are people gonna get there?”

  “I don’t know, Willo. Boats, I suppose.”

  “Where is this Island?”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “But why are you still here?” I say. “Why didn’t you go to the hills? You got the book, aint you?”

  Jacob’s wife look around the little room. Her eyes glance from the shelves to the cracked jars and the tin basin hanging from the door and the pots and pans by the fire.

  “We’re old now. This is our home, Willo. Where we belong. For better or for worse.”

  “Do you think we like it here, mmm?” Jacob get up from his chair. “Do you think anyone likes being cold and hungry and scared of the gangs and the dogs and the soldiers? Their children dying of cold and hunger in their arms—never knowing what’s around the next corner? Mmm? Do you think we want to live like this? But we’re lucky. We aren’t in the settlements. I have work still. People dream of going to China, Russia—anywhere. It’s a dream that keeps their noses to the ground. But some of us want a better world right here!” He hit the table with his hand. He got a proper fire inside him, sound like what Patrick call someone who gonna die for an idea the way he’s spouting on.

  “And the reason your family have been taken away is because the hills are being cleared. Yes, cleared. ANPEC are buying the land and the ministry don’t want people like you up there. Do you understand? Mmm?”

  “ANPEC?” I say.

  “They built all the reactors and own all the coal mines. They grow all the food. They don’t want stealers or stragglers up in the hills causing them trouble.”

  “We don’t cause no trouble.”

  “They don’t see a difference, Willo. You’re all the same to them. Stealers, stragglers, settlement dwellers. All the same to them. They’re scared of all this talk. Scared of that book. Scared of any resistance. They’ve got the money and they want the land. Mmm? And the government is going to give it to them. They don’t want people talking about free islands. They want people buying their coal and electricity and food.”

  “But ANPEC aint the government. How come the government aint saying something?”

  “Pah! The government are in the East’s pocket so deep they can’t get out. When ANPEC come along wanting something, the government, they say, ‘Let’s see what they’ll bring to the table.’ What table? Mmm, what table? Yes yes, the table we’ll be sacrificed on one day. They smoke Hongtashan and drink Chinese whiskey, they give away our land, and all this in the name of seeing what will be brought to that proverbial table. They will discover too late that we are the lunch. Mmmm. Oh, yes, we will be the lunch.”

  “Calm down, Jacob.” The old woman reach out from the bed.

  But Jacob aint calming down. He sound like my dad when he been banging on about beacons of hope and government people and all that stuff.

  And like Patrick say, The trees around the door aint gonna help you then.

  But I don’t believe they gonna take away a few stragglers just cos what it say in some old book. And anyway, how they gonna know my dad got the book? It don’t make sense somehow.

  And Patrick. Patrick aint gonna sit by while they take him away off the mountain. He been big and strong now after cutting wood all winter. He got out from the camp at the Wylfa reactor. He gonna fight for sure. Dad and Patrick gonna be thinking of some way to escape. Maybe they all got away somehow.

  Jacob slump back in his chair. “Mmm, so you see, you’ll have to be patient, boy. Maybe Dorothy Bek-Murzin will help you. But don’t get your hopes up.”

  PART III

  THE MELT

  For winter’s rains and ruins are over,

  And all the season of snows and sins;

  The days dividing lover and lover,

  The light that loses, the night that wins;

  And time remembered is grief forgotten,

  And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,

  And in green underwood and cover

  Blossom by blossom the spring begins.

  —Algernon Charles Swinburne

  31

  May come. All over the drip drip drip of the melt. Start early this year.

  Jacob give me a tin of money. He say, “You earned it, Willo.”

  We been stuck inside most of the winter. Trouble on the streets. Flames from the shanties. Gangs in the settlements come roaring out at night. I watch it from up here in the tower block. See it pretty good through that great big window. Down below the trucks bristling with soldiers. No one go out after dark no more. Jacob say they barricade the whole settlement now. Aint no way in or out. The streets get quieter. I want to go back and look for Mary. “You won’t get near,” he say. “Can’t get through the streets for a foot of mud. You don’t want to see what they’re doing out there.”

  Even in the city the streets turn to muddy slush after the rains. Worse than the snow. Sheets of water washing ice from the roofs. Running in gullies down every road. The stink even worse. Out of every drain putrid slop come bubbling up and everywhere damp and musty. Rats get bold as dogs. Whispering in my ear at night. Slip through the cracks, Willo, slip through the cracks. Sometimes I listen out for the dog. But I guess he been running on the hill.

  You watch a pack of dogs in the melt and they look like they got a pretty good thing going. Playing and jumping about licking each other. And they get proper excited when a bitch bring her pups out the ground in spring. I tell you, it gonna make you smile when you see dogs leaping around all over the place
like that. And they look out for each other sure as snow gonna fall. Just got to watch out if you been the runt that’s all. But I reckon that been the same for people too. People always looking to find the runt in you and needle it out if they can. I hate that.

  But now it’s just those hissing rats. Dog got free back to the hills for sure.

  Still, the few weeks of the coming summer in everyone’s mind now. Just like Patrick always say: “Everyone waiting to feel the sun on their shoulders.”

  The old woman get out of bed for the first time. Jacob got her propped up in a chair by the window. She busy herself stitching and stirring the pot.

  But still I feel like I been trapped in a cage. Trapped in this bad-smelling tower. Feel just like those rats stuck in here.

  Now the melt come, old feelings flood back. Wake me up in the night with panic in my heart. In my dreams I see Mary pressed against the barricades, the people crying out for food. She been calling for me, the twins hanging around her legs. Make me sit up pretty sharp. I been here too long. Getting soft. Bad feelings jumping about in my head. Like hares leaping and fighting on the Farngod in the spring.

  We been luckier than most though. We got coal enough and food enough with the money we get for the coat. I got papers now. Dorothy Bek-Murzin been true to her word.

  “You can come and see me, come and go as you please inside the city now, Willo,” she say. I smile to her, but it don’t feel much like “coming and going as I please” to me.

  Sometimes I walk through the dirty streets. I got to know the city now. Got to know the different buildings and corners like they been rocks and crags on the mountain. All the time I been looking at the faces of the people passing in the smog and rain. Maybe I’m gonna see Mary one day.

  The first time I come alone to Dorothy Bek-Murzin I been shaking inside. Up the stairs with my hat in my hand, back into that warm room.