Winter Damage

by Natasha Carthew

  She called out to the cows on approach and snapped a stick from the hedge to poke them from the circle of silage, glad she’d not bothered to move it because they’d eaten it gone and the soil beneath was already frosting with ice flakes.

  The cold made steel-blade peaks of the hoof-tilled land that surrounded her. Snow settled all around and over the hedgerows so that she could no longer see the dark trim of moorland beyond.

  ‘We’re goin walkies,’ she told the cows. ‘And I don’t need no nonsense so just move along now.’

  They followed her out through the open gate and down the track to the barn and Ennor told them they were good girls because they were. She pushed them through the barn door and bolted it, one and two, with thoughts of the cosy stove inviting her back indoors, then she wondered about Trip and if she might go to meet him because his lift was near enough due.

  Along the track Ennor looked up to see Butch in the upstairs bedroom window of the farmhouse.

  This was the room that used to be her parents’ in the house that had harboured her family all the way back to the man who built it, her great-great-great-grandfather.

  She waved and he waved back. ‘You comin down?’ she shouted.

  Butch nodded and he put one finger to the rattling top pane, which meant ‘Wait a minute’, and she nodded and went to sit in the woodpile. She slumped against the seasoned wood and settled on one of the upended logs they used for seats, watching the snowflakes fill the potholes in the dirt track and thinking all things Christmas.

  ‘Now you know why I suggested my old man put a roof on that thing.’

  Ennor smiled when she saw Butch approaching. ‘It’s cosy enough.’

  He sat down and undid the buttons on his parka and Ennor knew he was up to something because of the glint in his eye. ‘Look what I got.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Home brew. I found it in the pantry. Bin there for ever.’

  ‘Why int it drunk?’

  ‘The olds must have forgotten bout it.’

  He passed the bottle to Ennor and she inspected the hand-written label. ‘What flavour is it?’ she asked as she wiped the dust away with the heel of her hand.

  ‘Elderflower.’

  ‘I hate elderflower, don’t you?’

  Butch nodded. ‘Like soap.’

  ‘Tastes like sick and more.’ She dug at the cork with her penknife and took a swig and then nodded. ‘Bad.’

  Butch laughed and Ennor saw him wince with pain.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nothin, just muscle strain or somethin.’

  ‘You don’t do nothin to get muscle strain ’cept read. Maybe it’s liftin too much books.’

  ‘Don’t be daft.’

  ‘Is it your chest?’

  ‘Just leave it, would you?’ He took a sip of the wine and then another. ‘That is bad.’ He nodded and poured the liquid into a bubble in the snow.

  ‘Don’t need no booze anyway. I’ve got celebratin on my mind,’ said Ennor.

  ‘What kind of celebratin?’

  ‘The Christmas kind.’

  ‘What you got to celebrate bout Christmas?’

  Ennor smiled and linked his arm. ‘Dad says he’s got money comin and he aims to spend it.’

  ‘And you believe him?’ asked Butch as he pulled away.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Cus hello?’

  ‘He don’t lie. Just circumstance turns up bad some days.’

  ‘Like a bad penny.’

  ‘Just like it. Why you on a downer?’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Seems that way.’ She rolled herself a cigarette and passed the tin to Butch.

  ‘You heard the news recent?’ he asked.

  ‘Heard enough of it.’

  ‘Bad int it?’

  Ennor shrugged and lit up and held the flame for him. ‘I’m not worried. Don’t affect us so much out here in the sticks. Things are bad here anyway.’

  ‘No fuel, no food, no government even. I dunno, it just might.’

  ‘You reckon? I hope not, just gettin used to a nice thought in my head.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Christmas, silly.’

  ‘Thought you had rent due.’

  ‘Big time, but Dad said not to worry.’

  Butch shook his head and Ennor ignored him. ‘The power of positive thinkin.’ She nodded.

  ‘Maybe you should be careful. You’re sweet and all but gullible as –’

  ‘Don’t even know what that means. Is it a good thing?’

  ‘Means you believe everythin anyone’s got to say, no matter what.’

  ‘Like trustin?’

  ‘Kind of.’

  ‘Nothin wrong with trustin.’

  Butch laughed and drew his hand up to his chest ‘Till it brings trouble.’

  ‘I int stupid, Butch.’

  ‘Just sayin.’

  ‘Well don’t. I was lookin forward to tellin Trip bout Christmas and now you’ve gone peed on me fairy lights.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, just watchin out for my best friend.’ He smiled.

  Ennor liked it when he said things like that. ‘You don’t think Dad’s gonna pay off the rent?’

  Butch shrugged. He looked tired, in pain.

  ‘Cus if he don’t we’re buggered, homeless and everythin.’

  ‘You can live here in the woodpile.’

  ‘We got the barn but I’m not livin with a load of snippy snappy rats.’ She shook her head and then looked at him. ‘Things will be all right, won’t they?’

  Butch changed the subject and asked about Trip.

  ‘Fine, spose he is anyway. School’s closin and stayin closed. Trip thinks it’s great cus, you know, he don’t like it for the teasin. But school’s a good thing. It’s a right thing when everythin else is wrong.’

  Butch nodded. ‘Learnin’s the only thing we got as a get-out. So what bout Christmas, you made your list yet?’

  Ennor smiled. ‘Course.’

  ‘Got your mind on all things fancy, I bet.’

  ‘We int had a fancy one ever. Just a few nice things I’m plannin, for Trip, make some nice memories. I got a few of um myself in regards to Christmas.’

  Butch said nice memories were better than a fancy Christmas and Ennor put her hand on his arm and then took it away. ‘We gotta make the best of it, don’t we? Whatever we got, one way or other.’ She leant forward to look at him, to see if he wanted to talk about his stuff the way she always did about hers but his mouth was on the fag and his mind had wandered someplace else.

  At the crossroads she rested on the wooden signpost and rolled a cigarette and settled herself to smoking and waiting. She kept her eyes fixed on the grey dust horizon and continued with the shopping list from earlier, with everything hot and fatty and of gargantuan proportion.

  Headlights flashed occasionally through the trees and Ennor ignored them, loading an imaginary table with heavy food until an ancient Land Rover slowed to a stop in front of her.

  ‘Ennor.’ Mrs Trewithick climbed out of the front seat and levered it forward for Trip to scramble from the back.

  ‘Wow, miss, how many you got in there?’

  ‘Sister, the car was skiddin. We nearly died.’ Trip linked his hand into the loop of his sister’s arm and jumped for attention. ‘And there’s no more school, ever.’

  ‘Hi, buddy, looks like you’re gonna have a long Christmas. Is that right?’ she asked.

  Mrs Trewithick nodded. ‘No fuel. No heating. Best thing is to keep listening to the radio. I’m sure things will be back to normal soon enough.’ She smiled and passed Ennor a letter and she looked like she was on the brink of crying.

  ‘And look, Mrs Trewithick gave me these hikers.’ Trip kicked snow into the air to show off his new shoes.

  Ennor crossed her arms and pulled up proud. ‘There’s no need for that, miss. We was goin shoppin soon enough, weren’t we, buddy?’

  ‘They were my son’s. Honestly, he barely w
ore them. Grow so fast, don’t they?’ She closed the car door on the screaming children and took a step towards Ennor in an attempt at privacy.

  ‘Well that’s great, Mrs Trewithick. Thank you, really.’

  ‘You look after yourself, Ennor.’ She smiled and nodded towards the letter. ‘It won’t be for long.’

  Ennor smiled and said something about winter not being a for ever thing.

  She told Trip to thank his teacher again and she pulled him off the lane towards the track.

  ‘You’ve got my number, Ennor. If there’s anything I can help with, please let me know.’

  ‘Thanks, miss.’ She pocketed the letter and turned to put an arm around Trip’s shoulder and she told herself not to think badly of Mrs Trewithick because she didn’t mean to interfere.

  ‘Fine boots you got there, buddy. Winter boots, int they?’

  Trip smiled up at her. ‘It’s gonna be like a real Christmas, snow and everythin.’ He danced out into the powder that had banked against the verge and and his heels kicked happy hope towards the storm. Ennor skipped after him. She tried to recall what it was like to be a kid but it felt unfamiliar to her, a briefly glanced at movie starting with the slaughter that led Dad to drink and the baby that led Mum to leave.

  They raced down the track to the courtyard in front of the farmhouse and Ennor hinted more and more that it was going to be the best Christmas ever.

  ‘Like how best?’

  ‘I dunno, best food, best pressies, a snowman out in the yard.’

  ‘I don’t like snowmen. They scare me.’

  ‘Well whatever you like.’ She scooped two handfuls of snow into a ball and threw it at him as she ran to the trailer.

  ‘Hey!’ Trip ran after her but when he got to the porch she was already inside and she refused to let him in until he threw the snowball he held behind his back into the wind.

  Trip sat by the stove and stripped to his vest and pants while Ennor hung the wet clothes on the line that drooped from one end of the cramped room to the other.

  ‘You need to take them boots off too. You look a right sight in your undies with them big boots stickin out.’

  Trip laughed and bent to undo the laces and Ennor helped.

  ‘Miss tied um double-knot tight.’

  ‘You need to stick some sheets from the free ads into the toe, ball um up tight and leave um be and they’ll be dry in no time.’

  Ennor made them mugs of hot squash and took down the tin of oat biscuits she’d been saving for the end of term. ‘These are a bit soft so dunk um in your juice and you won’t know the difference.’

  They sat close to the stove and Ennor quizzed her brother about his day as he petted his boots, turning them in his hands like found objects.

  ‘Fine boots.’ He smiled to himself.

  ‘And what happens if you look after your boots?’ his sister asked.

  ‘They’ll look after you.’

  ‘That’s right. Never dry straight without paper and a good dab of wax if you got it.’

  ‘And leave the wax on for an hour.’

  ‘That’s right, buddy, you got it.’

  ‘And what if you don’t have wax?’

  ‘Rub a banana skin over it.’

  This answer always made Trip laugh. ‘We int got no bananas.’ He grinned. ‘Not since a long, time, sister. Shops are closin and everythin.’

  ‘We don’t have a lot of things and never have so never mind bout that. What I tell you bout listnin in on older kids talk?’ She lifted his chin to show she was serious.

  ‘Don’t,’ he answered.

  ‘Don’t is right. It’s gossip and it’s rubbish and worse. Shops closin or no don’t mean a thing.’

  Ennor emptied his school bag to add it to the washing line and she was glad to see he’d brought home reading books because reading was good and she laid them out on the little table along with the plastic horse he carried everywhere and his jotter and pencil case. Then she remembered the letter and settled back in the chair to read it.

  Letters used to be about school trips and term dates but not any more. Ennor read them and kept them in a card file in a box under the bed but she knew this one was different as soon as it was pulled from the envelope. ‘Social Services’ was writ large at the top of the page and Ennor read the words over and then ‘Trip’, ‘institution’ and ‘vulnerable’ and she balled it and shoved it deep into her pocket.

  She looked to see if Trip had noticed the letter but he hadn’t and she watched him show his horse the new boots. She would not give up her baby brother no matter how bad things got and she wondered why social services were bothering with them when there were a million families in the same situation and worse with the men street fighting just for the sake of it and everyone without money and roofs. What kind of an institution was it anyway?

  At least her dad was a man allergic to trouble. He’d know what to do. Ennor knew he was no angel but he had wings enough to get them out of trouble in the past and she wondered about social services and if telling him was a tick against good or bad. She pushed the biscuit stodge around in her mouth and pretended that everything would be fine, but her stomach churned and she spat the lump into her hand and ran outside to be sick.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The cramped fold-down bed where Ennor lay was full of loose springs but it was her bed and she loved it. She stared up at the ceiling and wondered this way and that, her head a buzz-bulb full of impossible questions and unfeasible answers. She knew Trip was awake because she could hear him whispering to his buddy horse beneath the sheets and she knew he was talking about Christmas by his cheerful tone.

  ‘Mornin, buddy. I can hear you over there, you know.’

  Trip giggled. ‘And buddy horse.’

  ‘Mornin, buddy horse.’ She smiled.

  ‘Mornin, sister. Mornin, Ennor. Is it breakfast?’

  Ennor rested up on her elbows. ‘Well I guess so. Porridge OK with you?’

  Trip peeked out of his bed and pushed his nose up against the window. ‘It’s stopped snowin. Can I go look for eggs, please?’

  ‘Well good luck in findin any but OK we can go take a look.’ She counted to three before leaping into the cold damp room and she added layers of clothing to the ones she’d slept in. She told Trip to dress quickly so they could look for eggs straight off and she looked in on her dad, like she did every morning to stop the worry that had her restless each night.

  Out in the porch Ennor made Trip put on his wellies and not the hikers and they put on their dirty work coats.

  ‘Weather got worse in the night,’ said Trip as they trampled fresh snow in a pattern towards the barn.

  ‘A right little genius you are, int you?’

  She pulled his bobble hat down past his ears and they continued on their way.

  In the barn the cows slumped on the dirt floor chewing and the chickens sat startled and at odds with the sudden change in weather and were everywhere awkward. Heads and necks sprang from crates and broken bits of machinery, each one of them up and over and out of reach.

  ‘Why do they always do that?’ asked Ennor.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Roost everywhere but the coop when you’re hankerin after an egg.’

  Trip shrugged. ‘Cus they don’t like sharin. Don’t worry, I’ll get um.’

  Ennor watched him disappear into the wall of junk and she shouted for him to be careful.

  The wind outside was close to gale force and it raged through the barn’s loose panels and filled the place with a thousand whistles that crawled up Ennor’s spine like fingering boys.

  ‘You found anythin?’ she shouted above the noise. ‘Trip?’

  ‘I see somethin,’ he called back.

  ‘What? Better be eggs or we’re goin in.’ She crouched to the ground and peered into the hole.

  ‘There’s a load of old clothes.’

  ‘Any eggs? I’m startin to freeze to the spot here.’

  Trip pushed himself further
beneath the machinery and Ennor bent her head to look where his legs had been.

  ‘Eggs,’ he exclaimed. ‘I knew it, the little buggers, there’s loads.’

  ‘Hey, no swearin.’

  ‘You do.’ He reached out a twist of rag with seven eggs piled against each other and handed them to Ennor.

  ‘Good work, buddy.’

  ‘Seven, that’s lucky right?’

  ‘Lucky when you’re hungry. Come on out now.’

  ‘There’s a load of old stuff in here.’

  Ennor stood and counted the eggs over and waited for him to reappear.

  ‘We could sell some of it.’

  ‘Everythin worth anythin has been sold already. Now come out.’

  ‘What about this?’

  Trip reversed out of the hole in the junk wall and handed her an old picture frame.

  ‘Is it gold?’ he asked.

  Ennor’s fingers twitched like triggers as she stared at the faded photo of Mum and Dad on their wedding day.

  ‘It int gold,’ she said.

  ‘We could sell it on the internet.’

  ‘How’d we do that? We don’t have a computer. Anyway there’s no internet no more.’

  ‘We could ask Butch to help.’

  ‘Butch int allowed usin the computer.’

  ‘Why not?’ He grabbed the frame from under Ennor’s arm.

  ‘Cus his dad’s a bastard but you dint hear it from me.’

  Trip held out the frame in front of him to look at the photo. ‘He beats him, don’t he? You don’t have to say, cus I know.’

  ‘All you need to know is you got a good daddy at home there and you should thank the Almighty for that.’

  They retraced the circle of footsteps through the snow and Ennor clutched the eggs to her chest like a newborn.

  ‘Who’s these in the photo?’ he asked.

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘How many eggs we got?’

  ‘Seven.’

  ‘Two each and one for buddy horse?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Why maybe?’

  ‘Cus buddy horse don’t like eggs and always gives it to you.’

  ‘Then I eat three.’ He smiled up at his sister as they entered the porch and she told him it was good to be smart but not with her.

  They flicked off their boots and coats and Ennor carried the eggs into the kitchen and placed them on the side still wrapped in her mother’s old shirt.