THE VERY DEAD OF WINTER

by MARY HOCKING

  The front door opened and closed. They could hear footsteps crunching the frozen snow. Anita went to the window and saw Nicholas striding across the garden in the direction of the path which led eventually to the Challoners’ house. She dreaded her mother’s question, but when she turned away from the window she saw that Florence was asleep.

  Anita went into the kitchen and prepared ham sandwiches. She made coffee, put mince pies to heat and peeled a banana. She sat at the kitchen table and ate slowly and steadily, staring at the flickering candle flame for so long that when she turned away a dark negative of the flame seemed to be implanted in her eyes. She put sandwiches on a plate, poured a cup of milk and took the tray into the sitting-room. Florence was still asleep, so she scribbled a note on the back of a Christmas card – mince pies in oven. Then, at last, she went up the stairs to Konrad’s room.

  Sophia was sitting by the bed, holding Konrad’s hand. Anita wanted to tell her how wicked she was, but did not know how much her father could hear, or how near the end was. She wouldn’t want these to be the last words he heard. Instead, she whispered, ‘Will it be tonight?’ Sophia shook her head. It did not occur to Anita to challenge Sophia’s judgement. ‘I’ll take a turn,’ she said and Sophia nodded.

  Anita sat with her father, holding his hand, while Sophia went down to the kitchen and ate the mince pies that Anita had left for Florence. Then she went out to the shed where she was sleeping and where Tobias was waiting for her. It was an hour before she returned.

  ‘I’m all right,’ Anita said, although in fact she felt rather faint because her father’s rasping breath occasioned an answering pain in her own breast.

  ‘Your mother isn’t all right,’ Sophia said. ‘You must look after her. She is very shocked.’

  Anita was taken aback to realise that she felt more at one with Sophia, for all her wickedness, than with her mother. She went reluctantly down the stairs and, after a brief search, found Florence in the scullery among the boots.

  ‘There must be some that will fit me,’ Florence said. ‘I have normal-sized feet.’

  ‘It matters?’ Anita tried not to sound weary of her mother’s antics.

  ‘Of course it matters. I can’t walk barefoot – though I dare say it would be fitting.’ Florence seemed to have recovered some of her sharpness.

  ‘What are you talking about? Where do you think you can walk tonight, barefoot or otherwise?’

  ‘To Mass, of course, what else?’

  ‘You must be mad. The church is miles away.’

  ‘Two miles, according to Sophia. If we start now we should make it.’

  Anita realised that this must be taken seriously. Her mother did not make empty gestures of this nature; if she said she meant to do something or go somewhere, it was usually within her capacity to achieve her end. Anita could remember returning one Christmas Eve very tired after Mass and her mother announcing that what she fancied was a Baked Alaska. She had set about making it there and then. But at least the ingredients had been to hand. Ingredients of another kind would be involved in this lunatic journey and they were definitely not to hand.

  ‘You haven’t the stamina,’ she told Florence. ‘And even if you had, you’ve no sense of direction at the best of times, which this isn’t. The only car that is free of the snow is Nicholas’s and he has the keys. Added to which, if we didn’t die on our way to the road, we would almost certainly find it impassable when we got there.’

  Florence said, pulling on a boot, ‘How would it have been if the Three Wise Men had turned back so readily?’

  ‘They came late, if you recall.’

  ‘You needn’t come if you don’t want to. But I have to go.’

  ‘Lots of people are going to miss Mass tonight.’

  ‘I have to go.’

  There was no doubting the urgency of this assertion. Anita saw that whatever she said, her mother meant to set out. She went upstairs and explained to Sophia. ‘How can I stop her?’

  ‘Better to let her go. Something is driving her out there.’

  ‘But it doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Oh, sense – it’s late in the day for sense.’

  ‘Oh well, I suppose no harm will come of it. We shan’t get very far. She’s not a walker. When she goes up Richmond Hill she runs out of puff.’

  ‘Nicholas has gone for a drink with Thomas. I expect he’ll be back soon. I’ll send him after you. And you’d better take the first-aid box from the bathroom, just in case, and a little brandy.’ Sophia came down to the front door to watch them set out. ‘Be careful to keep to the path. It hasn’t snowed since our guests left and you should be able to follow in their tracks.’ Most of those tracks will at some point go off to forest dwellings, Anita thought, but as she did not expect to go far before her mother lost heart, she did not protest.

  It seemed unnatural, for all her talk of being a natural woman, that Florence should have this urge to get out to Mass at a time when her husband was about to die. Anita said, ‘Don’t you want to see him before we go? You haven’t been to him since you took up that soup after the party.’

  ‘No, no. I have to get to Mass. Can’t you understand?’ Florence was eager to set out. It seemed to Anita that her mother thought Konrad’s life would be extended if she could fulfil this commitment, that even in the matter of his dying she could bring her influence to bear.

  The wind had dropped now. It was still as they stood on the threshold; the air fitted their faces close as a film of ice. Anita said, ‘You’re sure about this?’ Florence, who had been looking up as if mesmerised by the glitter of stars, launched herself forward and immediately disappeared in drifted snow which had piled up around the walls of the cottage. The fact that Anita and Sophia were able to rescue her without undue difficulty boosted her confidence and she set off down the garden path with determination.

  In much less time than Anita would have thought possible the cottage disappeared into the snow as if it had never been. Tracks there were – holes around which the snow foamed – whether made by animals or humans it was hard to tell. The path was strewn with obstacles; branches of trees – indeed whole trees – had fallen during the hurricane of 1987 and the gales that had followed and lay propped against other trees, forming great walls of snow over which Anita and Florence must climb. ‘We couldn’t have got the car along here yesterday,’ Anita said. ‘We must have taken a wrong track.’ But they went on because it seemed less hazardous than turning back and perhaps taking yet another wrong track. Already they were not thinking very clearly. At each step their boots sank deep in snow and an effort was required to raise them again. After what seemed an unconscionable time, they came to what was obviously a ride between the trees and Florence was convinced they were on course again. Anita maintained the ride was broader than any track they had followed in the car.

  ‘I remember it quite well,’ Florence insisted. ‘And, anyway, we couldn’t possibly have missed a track as broad as this when we came.’ This, it seemed to Anita, was to be not so much a trial of stamina as of optimism.

  Although the snow came up to the top of her boots, Florence stumbled forward eagerly as if in the far distance the church were already in sight. From time to time, she encouraged Anita: ‘We shall see them soon. There will be so many people, all going . . . we shall see them.’ They had now been out for over three-quarters of an hour. Still Florence struggled on, seeing, the people and the church doors open, the light from inside casting a golden glow on the snow, hearing the sound of music and the laughter of excited children. Her expectancy increased with every foot of ground so heroically gained. She had always been expectant, had never allowed herself to dwindle into a state of dulled acceptance; but this was something the like of which she had never experienced before. Expectancy throbbed in her temples, pressed against her ribcage . . . Suddenly, she missed her footing and sprawled across the dismembered trunk of a tree. The breath was knocked out of her and with it went the throng of people, the church, the golde
n light. All faded. Her child, now grown into a cross, disparaging adult, was squatting behind a tree to relieve herself. There was a brand across Florence’s forehead and a searing pain in her lungs. She was no longer sure if it was she or Konrad who was about to die. Death, not birth, seemed in the air this night.

  Anita came and propped her mother up against the tree stump. ‘Now’s the time for a little brandy,’ she said. They had a swig each and then sat silently, hunched like spent athletes who have failed to touch the tape. Florence said, ‘To be born on a night like this! It’s not at all the way I have thought of it.’ She sounded just as she used to when criticising the way a director was producing a crucial scene in a play at her amateur dramatic club. She turned to Anita. ‘Why do you think He chose to come in winter? It’s very hard to understand what good could possibly come out of such cold.’

  Anita put her arm round her mother’s shoulders, gingerly, as if she feared she might never get it back again. ‘Are we going on?’

  ‘I can’t,’ Florence said simply. ‘I can’t go a step further. I don’t know why I came. It seemed important at the time, but I can’t remember why.’

  When Sophia told her that Konrad had received the last rites. Death had become a reality in whose presence she herself had seemed to fall apart, reduced to the level of the homely clutter in the kitchen. All the characteristics and qualities so necessary to her self-assurance had been swept away, like friends who have failed in the hour of need. Threatened by disintegration, she had rushed out in great fear, not seeking absolution so much as hoping that the tattered pieces which had made her what she was might be picked up on her journey and brought to a place where they would be reassembled in some recognisable form.

  ‘If we’re not going on, we must go back,’ Anita said.

  ‘I haven’t the strength.’ Florence began to cry, not passionately, but wearily, like an overtaxed child.

  ‘We can’t stay still,’ Anita said. ‘Whatever else we do, we mustn’t stay still.’

  ‘Everything is still,’ Florence said. ‘Hadn’t you noticed?’

  Where were they all, the forest creatures? Florence imagined the birds frozen on branches, deer stopped in mid-stride; foxes lying on their backs with folded front paws. No breath in any of them. All her life Florence had made it her business to fill every gap in conversation and she had come to believe that only the sound of the human voice sustained the universe. But the silence had always been there, in the background, waiting like a tireless enemy; now it seemed it had won.

  ‘It is all over,’ she said to Anita. ‘I, too, shall lie down and fold my front paws.’

  Anita, frightened, tried to haul her mother to her feet, but Florence was a heavy woman and her clothing had added to her weight. Anita hooked her arms under her mother’s armpits and clasped her hands across the substantial chest. She began to drag Florence along the path, while Florence stared up at the stars winking in the black sky. They did not get very far before Anita backed into a fallen branch and fell heavily.

  When she had recovered her breath, Anita began to shout at her mother. ‘We shall die here if we don’t move, do you realise that? You may be ready to die, but I’m not.’ She struck her mother across the face, something she had wanted to do ever since she was a child, but not in these circumstances. She took hold of the front of her mother’s sheepskin jacket and attempted to shake her. Florence seemed beyond caring and all Anita succeeded in doing was to frighten herself still more.

  Florence, who was now feeling light-headed and rather exalted, said, ‘I don’t care. I don’t mind what happens. You had better—’ She stopped abruptly, sat up straight and pointed a finger.

  ‘No hallucinations, please!’ Anita said, but she turned her head and saw two lights gleaming under one of the trees. Not a fox, she thought, too high for that. She made her way forward, heart pounding, and came upon a short, stumpy pony. He made no movement when she reached out to touch his mane, but his eyes blinked.

  ‘He’s frozen,’ she shouted to her mother. ‘He’s nearly frozen to death, poor thing.’ She took off her scarf and set to work frantically rubbing the pony’s mane and flanks. Florence struggled to her feet and stumbled towards her daughter. Together, they occupied themselves with the pony for some time. ‘What are we going to do with him?’ Florence asked when at last he showed signs of thawing.

  ‘You are going to sit on him.’

  This was easier said than done. What the pony lacked in height it made up for in girth and Florence was no horsewoman.

  ‘You’re supposed to grip with your knees,’ Anita said in exasperation.

  ‘There’s nothing to grip and, anyway, I have no knees. Both my legs are frostbitten, I shall probably lose them.’ Eventually, however, she managed to squat froglike, gripping the pony’s mane.

  The pony had submitted amiably to these proceedings, but none of Anita’s blandishments, no shouting, poking, prodding, or pulling on his mane, could move him.

  ‘He expects to be led,’ Florence said indifferently, looking down on the scene as if from a great height.

  ‘I’m trying to lead him.’

  ‘Not in the way to which he is accustomed.’ Florence’s lofty position had elevated her to the role of instructor. ‘You need something with which to pull him along.’

  The pony rubbed its muzzle against Anita’s shoulder. ‘You see,’ Florence said. ‘He’s quite friendly, but stupid. You need a rope.’

  Anita tried to make a rope of her scarf, but the pony’s neck was remarkably thick and the scarf acted as a muffler rather than a rope. Then she thought of the first-aid box. She unzipped her backpack and extracted the small case that Sophia had given her. As she had hoped, it contained a roll of bandage; but there was not enough to form an adequate rope. She stood thinking, chewing a strand of hair as she had as a child when trying to solve a mathematical problem. It had always seemed that her hair had magical properties. ‘I’ve got the answer!’ she exclaimed. The first-aid box contained as well as the bandage, a pair of scissors and a roll of adhesive tape. She took a swathe of hair and began to plait. It was her proud boast that she could sit on her hair, so the plait was long. When she had made four plaits, she took the scissors and cut them loose high in the nape of the neck; then she joined them into one long rope with the adhesive tape.

  ‘You will look very ugly,’ Florence said. ‘And I expect at one tug it will all come apart.’

  ‘The hair is strong and so is the tape, and we’ll have to hope he doesn’t tug.’

  She fitted the rope around the pony’s neck and gently urged him forward. He followed meekly, his scruples apparently satisfied.

  Nicholas, setting out to meet them, had one of the most unnerving experiences in all his explorations, when he saw coming along the path towards him what appeared to be a huddled figure on a donkey led by a man.

  It was after eleven by the time Florence had been settled in bed. While Sophia was tending her, the telephone rang.

  ‘Whoever was that on the phone?’ she asked Nicholas when eventually she came downstairs.

  ‘A Mrs Prentice, I think she said. Her voice was very faint.’

  ‘Something left behind? The Prentices usually leave a memento of their visits.’

  ‘I think it’s more a case of their having taken something away with them. She asked if we were all right. It seems they’re not.’

  Chapter Three

  At dawn A smoky sun had cast a crimson glow on the snow on the window sill of Konrad’s room; but now the colour had gone from the sky and it was colder. He thought he could hear the ice ringing like the notes of a piano. Stillness, cessation of breath, the earth hung suspended, without motion. But the earth couldn’t do that, of course, not until its appointed time. It was he who was suspended.

  It seemed natural, this stepping out of time with all its weariness, no more than shedding an old garment.

  Distance. Everything distanced. Distance from pain, fear, anger, pathetic attempts at loving a
nd caring; distance from people. At first it had been no more than a hairline crack in reality, something that could be righted by a little attention, increased concentration; but it had grown until it was a chasm which there was no bridging. The distance would not now be lessened.

  There they were, the people in the cottage, like figures in a child’s toy theatre, coming and goings resentful, awkward, upset, apprehensive, and one who was silent and loving. He was somewhere outside, looking in at them. They had no reality. God was the only reality; no longer the object of pious devotion, but the one incontrovertible truth beside which all else was shadow.

  He would like to have been benevolent, he felt an impulse to benevolence of a general kind; but the intricacies of relationship, the needs and demands, excuses and accusations, responsibilities, the remembrance of things said and done, of particular acts of love or hate, had no meaning any more. He had passed into an area where they had no currency.

  ‘It is like being in a hammock,’ he said, suddenly, clearly, to Sophia. ‘Still held by gravity, but not earthed.’

  When she came to his side he had drifted away. Suppose he slips away finally while I am not with him? she thought. How hard to accept that there is this great occasion in the lives of those we love in which we play no part.

  She wondered what it would feel like for him, and for herself when her time came. Tiredness at the end of a day when nothing is of more importance than sleep and the faces of even the most dearly loved grow dim and finally dissolve?

  I must let you go, she thought; whatever form we take hereafter I shall never find you again unless I let this mortal man go. Our only hope is in the letting go.

  Anita woke painfully aware of every bone in her body. When she tried to look at the clock on the chest of drawers beside the bed, she found that her head was locked in the forward position. She forced herself to sit up, just to make sure she could still do it. It was eight o’clock and dull light filtered through the curtains. She managed to get out of bed and stand up after the third attempt. Drawing the curtains proved difficult because it was excruciatingly painful to raise her arm to shoulder level. Nicholas was standing just below the window feeding a small, stout pony. What she had hoped was a terrible dream became concrete.