The Boy Made of Snow

by Chloe Mayer

  Strangely, considering his illness, Jimmy had a reputation for being a bit of a bully. He’d probably become that way to avoid being bullied himself. He was big though, strong-looking, so that probably helped. She had heard that he’d even been arrested a couple of times for fighting.

  She didn’t know the mirror man or the other fellow at all. They both looked as though they were in their early forties. The mirror man had thinning brown hair and an open, kind-looking face. She wondered what was wrong with them. Perhaps they had been soldiers but had been sent home injured.

  What with Jimmy’s mean streak, Higgins’s puritanical air, and Richard’s sheer size as he lumbered around, she felt uncomfortable.

  Eventually, Higgins motioned for the others to join him. There was some more quiet discussion and then Higgins strode towards her with the others in his wake.

  ‘Well,’ he said as he consulted his forms, rifling through the pages as though to remind himself of his findings, which he had, in fact, only just found. ‘You’ll be relieved to hear your bomb shelter’s all right.’

  He peered at her over his reading glasses, then glanced back at his clipboard when she simply said, ‘Oh. Good.’

  ‘However,’ rustle, rustle went the pages, ‘we have ascertained that you do not appear to have a vegetable patch.’

  There was another pause.

  ‘Ah. Well, no … That is, not yet.’

  ‘And may I ask why, Mrs Patterson?’

  ‘Well, I … I …’ she glanced around the garden and at the five men staring at her. ‘I certainly have every intention of digging one. It’s just … the time …’

  ‘We must all make time, don’t you think so, Mrs Patterson? I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of the “Dig for Victory” campaign.’

  ‘No, no thank you. I’m perfectly aware of it. As I said, I’ve been busy, but I most certainly intend to plant some things. Over there!’ She pointed at the end of the garden.

  ‘And, were we to visit you again, say, Thursday week, there would be some improvement in that direction?’

  ‘Next Thursday? Why yes, I suppose I could—’

  ‘Glad to hear it. Right, chaps?’

  They nodded.

  ‘Excellent,’ somebody said.

  ‘We’re about to put these up – show her the posters, Albert.’

  One of the men held up a cartoon image of Hitler doing his bizarre and simultaneously sinister salute. He had a stash of them and was obviously intending to put them up around the village. Underneath the picture, the words read: WASTE THE FOOD AND HELP THE HUN.

  ‘Ah, yes. It’s … very true,’ she said in response.

  ‘Show ourselves out then, shall we?’ Higgins said.

  ‘Oh, please, let me just …’ She gestured them back into the house and they trundled back through the way they’d come.

  ‘I’ll be careful this time,’ the mirror man joked, and exaggerated his careful movements as he walked past the frame.

  She could tell he was trying to be nice to her, so she laughed a little.

  ‘Yes please – I could do without the seven years’ bad luck!’

  He smiled. ‘Couldn’t we all?’

  ‘Don’t mind Mr Higgins,’ he told her, once the others were outside. ‘He’s just trying to make sure you ladies are all right, that’s all. All these women living by themselves, it doesn’t seem right. That’s why it’s our job to see that you’re looking after yourselves properly during this blasted war.’

  ‘I understand. It’s perfectly all right. I’ll work on the vegetable patch.’

  ‘It makes my blood boil to think that this is the fault of those Jerries living the life of riley just over yonder, while here you are, doing your best.’

  His face, so well-meaning and earnest just a moment before, had taken on an edge.

  She didn’t know how to respond, so she thanked him for coming and forced a smile as he left. She waited politely with the door open until he was on the other side of the gate at the end of the path where the others waited. He struggled to close the latch behind him.

  ‘Oh, you can leave that!’ she called. ‘Well, thanks again! Goodbye.’

  She automatically checked there were no new magnolia petals on the front lawn as they walked away down the lane; she’d forgotten the tree had already finished its short season and she’d binned the last handful of petals weeks ago. The front of her home looked spotless and not having a vegetable patch was only a minor misdemeanour.

  She closed the front door, leaned against it for a second or two, and then hurried into the sitting room to look out of the window. She wanted to see who they would visit next. There they were; going down the front path of a cottage a few doors down. She felt vulnerable. These men had power and if they ever found out how she was breaking all the rules – the most important ones of all – they were like wolves who could bring her house crashing down about her.

  When she heard about the beating, it was the mirror man’s genial face suddenly turning to something edgy and hard that she pictured first in her mind’s eye. And then she remembered the vague threat in the butcher’s words as he paid tribute to poor, dead Simon Moore.

  It was Hans who first told her what had happened, although she knew she would hear more – the gossip and rumours from various villagers – within a day or two.

  One of the PoWs was walking alone when he got into some kind of altercation.

  ‘He’s very badly hurt, very badly. Some men began … teasing him,’ Hans said, ‘is that the right word?’

  ‘Taunting?’

  ‘Yes. Taunting. But Erik can speak fluent English – better than me, maybe – and he began to argue with them.’

  Annabel didn’t really want to hear the rest, but she didn’t stop him.

  They were sitting outside, leaning against the shed. They’d hear if anyone came, she reasoned, and they could both jump up and pretend she was there to buy some wood. Her trolley was standing nearby. It was a dangerous game though, she knew, because if they didn’t hear someone approaching, that person would know in an instant everything there was between them. A man and woman, sitting so close, side by side with their legs stretched out in front of them as they leaned against the rough beams and chatted in the warm sunshine. That’s what intimacy looked like, and any fool would recognise it. Even before they stopped to wonder why she needed firewood in this heat.

  ‘Erik has a temper, everybody here knows that. It was bad luck that it was him they met, perhaps. But … Well, Erik says they would have beaten any of us, even if we were calm and said sorry and agreed with everything they said. He says the only reason they didn’t manage to kill him is because he was fighting back.’

  ‘Who were they?’

  ‘I don’t know that! Neither does Erik.’

  ‘But what did they look like? Were they old, young, tall, short, what colour hair did they have?’ Perhaps because the Home Guard visit had made such an impact on her, she found herself wondering whether any of those men had been involved. Jimmy Dockett, perhaps.

  ‘I don’t know. What does it matter anyway?’

  She supposed he was right.

  ‘It’s like the perfect crime,’ she said. ‘A victim nobody cares about; and one that a lot of people would like to rough up.’

  Hans was silent.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, dear!’ she gasped. ‘I didn’t mean that. Please forget I said it.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I was thinking the same thing.’

  ‘It was just a one-off, a horrible attack. Please let’s not think any more about it!’

  Hans picked up a small stick and began to scrape at the ground.

  ‘It feels like something’s changing,’ he said. ‘It feels like people are getting more angry here.’

  Annabel didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing.

  ‘A lot of people know that I work in this orchard every day. I’m alone. Nobody can see or hear me from the road.’

  ‘People are friendly too!
Most people don’t have anything against any of you!’ She reminded him of Dawson, and the Post Office manager. Then the Bishop sisters. ‘And they don’t like anybody!’

  Hans had scratched a groove an inch or two deep in the earth with the twig.

  ‘I’m not trying to frighten you, Annie,’ he said. ‘But you are saying these things as though people are happy we are here in their village. You must know that isn’t true. How could that possibly be true?’

  Annabel felt close to tears. They’d been having such a nice time, soaking up the sun. She didn’t understand why he had to tell her that ugly news about Erik. And she didn’t understand why they now seemed to be having some kind of argument.

  ‘Nobody would hurt you, Hans! Please don’t say such a thing.’

  He stopped staring at his stick-plough and turned to face her. ‘Don’t cry, please.’

  ‘I’m not!’

  ‘I’m just saying that somebody could hurt me. You need to be prepared for that. If it happens—’

  ‘Stop it!’ She stood up, and furiously brushed down the seat of her skirt. ‘I’ll have to leave if you’re going to continue to talk this way!’

  ‘Annie!’ he laughed. ‘Pull me up!’

  She reached for his hands.

  ‘Oof!’ he said as he stood. ‘I thought my arms would stop being pain, by now. Sore, I mean. But chopping wood is such hard work.’ He put his hand to her cheek for a moment and smiled.

  She hesitated. He was obviously trying to change the subject, but she didn’t feel mollified. She wouldn’t be able to bear it if something happened to him.

  ‘I wish this stupid war had never happened!’ she cried. ‘I wish we could live together normally.’

  ‘We wouldn’t have met if this stupid war never happened, remember?’

  She tried to smile. ‘I’d better get back.’

  ‘Let’s go in the shed so I can kiss you goodbye.’

  But when they were inside, she didn’t want to kiss; she clung to him and started crying.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ll be fine. Nobody will try to beat me. I’m sorry.’

  Over the next couple of days, Annabel heard more fragments of the story. She bumped into Jean Bainbridge, a wife of one of Reggie’s former colleagues, who told her that a PoW had been sent to hospital.

  ‘Nasty incident,’ Jean added, ‘there’s no need to resort to common violence. That’s what makes us better than them, isn’t it?’

  The boy must have eavesdropped on the gossip around the village. He found her in the sitting room where she was soothing her head by sipping from a glass of the port left over from her parents’ visit. He wittered on about broken ribs, punctured lungs and fractured cheekbones until she shouted at him to leave her alone.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if this was our little house?’

  She laughed at his words and looked around at the walls of the dusty old shed. ‘Perhaps it would be nicer to live somewhere a bit more comfortable, Hans!’

  She looked down at his hands, which she was massaging with a little Vaseline. He’d mentioned they were often sore and his palms were rough and calloused. When they were softer, she would dig out the worst of his splinters with the pin on her brooch.

  The muscles in his arms and shoulders often ached too, she knew, and she wished she could take him home with her to let him soak in a hot bath. But it was stuffy and close in the shed, which had grown uncomfortably warm in the sunshine, so maybe the summer heat in here would do him good.

  Hans looked down at his hands in her lap. ‘I worked very hard this morning,’ he said. ‘It felt like if I could chop enough wood there would be a prize for me.’

  She smiled in sympathy. Only a fraction of the trees had been cut down and there were many, many more he would have to fell in order to clear the dead orchard.

  ‘I chopped and chopped,’ he said. ‘But when I am chopping, I am thinking of you.’ She stopped massaging his hands and just held them. ‘And it seems like you are the prize I am working for.’

  She looked up into his eyes, shaken into silence. He clearly felt as much for her as she felt for him. She blinked away the tears that threatened to come.

  He must have seen them though, because he said: ‘Life is very sad and very hard for both of us now.’

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered.

  ‘But knowing you gives me happiness.’

  ‘It’s the same for me!’

  ‘I think even if life wasn’t hard and the war wasn’t here, I would still be feeling that you are my happiness.’

  She nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I wish there was a way we could be together like life was normal,’ he said.

  But the next time Annabel went to the orchard, he was angry.

  ‘Good morning, darling,’ she chirped like a fool, ‘I’ve brought you some nice tea,’ she indicated the flask she was pulling from her shopping cart, ‘and some bread and jam for a snack!’

  ‘Hello,’ he replied, glancing at her, and swung the axe down from above his head to split the wood balanced precariously before him.

  ‘Well, would you like to have it now?’

  ‘No thanks. Maybe later.’

  He bent to retrieve one of the fallen logs and stood it on the stump to split again.

  Thwack.

  She flinched. And couldn’t help thinking of those long-ago queens losing their heads to the executioner.

  He bent down to grab another chunk of wood.

  What have I done? she thought. She put the flask back in the trolley.

  ‘Aren’t you going to stop working?’

  ‘I’m busy.’

  ‘You usually stop what you’re doing—’

  ‘Damn it, Annabel!’

  ‘Hans!’ She was shocked.

  ‘I have to get this done, you know.’ Thwack. ‘I do actually have a job to do here. Other people come and want to buy wood sometimes, can you believe it? Dawson comes to see if I’m working.’ Thwack. ‘We aren’t a normal couple.’

  He threw his axe across the glen, and the blade cleaved the grass open and lodged there. She gasped. She had never seen him behave this way.

  He covered his face with his hands. There was a pause that lasted a moment or two. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, dropping his arms to his sides.

  She was frightened. She was frightened he was going to end it. ‘Darling, I don’t like it any more than you do. It’s beastly to behave like we’re doing something wrong. But please …’

  She found she was unable to finish her sentence.

  Please what? What promise could she possibly make him? How would things be different in the future? One side would win the war, one would lose. They would still be on different sides of the line. Her husband would come home. Probably. Hans would be sent back to Germany.

  ‘Erik died, did you hear?’

  ‘What? No! I had no idea!’

  Hans crossed the clearing and pulled his axe from the ground. He stamped the grassy wound down with his heel.

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ She took an uncertain step towards him. ‘I know he was your very dear friend.’

  ‘Well. He’s dead anyway.’

  ‘You told me you’d talked to him after they – well, after he was hurt. It sounded like he was all right.’

  He placed more wood on the block. He stared at it but made no move; the axe handle remained limp in his hand.

  ‘I thought he would be all right. He walked back to the camp. He was talking. He was talking all the big talk. How well he was fighting them, you know?’

  She nodded.

  ‘And then he was in the hospital.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘The doctors told the colonel he had bleeding in his brain. He was fine, then suddenly …’ He made a gesture with his hand.

  She watched his face, unsure how to comfort him. She saw his expression harden after a moment and knew he was thinking of the men who had attacked his friend.

  ‘They killed him,’ he said. ‘They mu
rdered him.’

  He smacked the wood off the stump with his palm and sat down. She stared at him mutely. She wondered if she should offer him the tea again. It might make him feel better.

  ‘They’re going to catch us, Annie.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘They’re going to catch us.’

  ‘No one knows!’

  ‘They’re going to catch us, and they’re going to kill me. Or they won’t catch us, but they might kill me anyway. Or they won’t catch us, they won’t kill me, but we will never see each other again when the war ends.’

  He smiled at her and shrugged. ‘Lots of possibilities. But none of them is good.’

  She felt her face collapsing and allowed the tears to fall. He stayed where he sat.

  ‘You’re in danger too, you know. You should know that. And I don’t want you to be in danger because of me.’

  ‘Please, Hans!’ She hated how she sounded like a child whining, or worse, begging. ‘Please don’t say such things!’

  ‘We have to stop now, I think.’

  She began to sob harder, rubbing furiously at her eyes. Her face felt hot and blotchy, her eyelids swollen.

  ‘Please! Please!’

  ‘Annabel! Be quiet! Somebody might hear!’

  That made her wail. He rushed over to her and bundled her into the shed, pulling her trolley in behind them. ‘Stop it!’ He looked out of the dirty little window even as he was feeling in his pockets for his handkerchief. That reaction was a force of habit; he was a wood-chopping prisoner; he no longer carried a handkerchief in his pocket. He used his fingers, instead, to wipe her eyes.

  ‘What else can I say to you?’ he asked, his voice somewhere between angry and helpless. ‘What do you want us to do? Do you want me to say yes, all is good! Let’s leave here now together – why not?’