by Laura Beatty
Then she’d head out again. Down the old ways and the trees with fire in their heads, blazing along the green rides, lighting the paths and the hollows, repeating by heart the long lesson of July and August and Indian September. Who needs the sun? Anne asked them, looking at their lights. You can do it for yourselves.
In the evenings she stayed up late, sorting, cooking, hanging things to smoke. Then she’d sleep till the wet autumn dawns woke her, with the air thick enough to taste, and she would be up and off, to the bramble thickets, or the hedgerows, competing with the birds for the berries. All the animals frantic. Quick, quick, winter’s coming.
♦
Winter was a knife, when it did come, a nail knocked into your fingernails and feet, a hammer. It happened to you, like it happened to the wood. The naked trees, the empty rides, just your footfall sounding in the dead white spaces.
Fog.
It was wetter mostly. All different types of rain, mizzle, drizzle and downpour, cold as metal always. Frost sometimes. The air thick at other times, white and opaque. To stay alive Anne roared like a stag, not afraid to make a noise now, not creeping invisible any more. Clumping on swollen feet, banging her hands, bellowing. A fight was how she saw it – an unequal battle, whoever thought that up. Flesh and blood against iron hammering the life out of you, gripping and wringing. It had a hard and pinching fist, winter did, and it never let go. She was ranged with the animals against it. Her noise was for them as she lumbered through the wood, because the cold bit at her throat when she breathed, because her toes and fingers were purple and burning, swollen with chilblains, itching like fire all night. Strange, Anne thought, how cold could feel so like its opposite.
There were compensations. The pink light of the fallen leaves, and the boles of the trees in the old stands of beech or oak. The winter moon so full of itself, swollen to the size of a world, and tangerine-coloured as it rose. She dug in holes and piles of leaves and found sleepy hedgehogs to tease out with sticks and she roasted them. She stayed in, burning everything she could find and huddling in her sleeping bag. She spent as much time as possible curled, waiting like everything else. She did like the squirrels, looking for their hidden hoards or sleeping.
Food, always food, scrimmaging about, scavenging, starving, always starving. Roots and berries, kale out of the fields, turnips if she could find them, roadkill, pheasants if she was lucky. Animals thin as pipe cleaners, sucking on bones, nibbling, whatever. The fox bolder than ever and handsome. But even he had hunger in his yellow eye. He’d come through the clearing, stinking, with his ears pricked. Got anything? Or she’d see him out in the fields, or when she was inspecting her traps. You eat one of these and I’ll kill you, she’d say to him. The thought that he might have nabbed someone’s chickens, or a duck was enough to make her crazy. How many did you kill this time? The whole henhouse I’ll bet. What about me? she asked him, through clenched teeth. What about me? She threw stones at him. Pest. Vermin. He just stared at her, turned himself round and trotted off. He couldn’t care less. He was her rival. If he saw her coming back from one of her snares, dangling a rabbit or a prize woodcock, she felt proud. She’d shake it at him and jeer, imagining jealousy in that yellow eye. Look what I’ve got. Ya! Look what I’ve got. That really made her day.
Weather, always weather. By February she was sick with longing for green, walking through a wood that was slant with catkin rain, willing the sap to rise, the shoots to come. Still so empty. It seemed deserted, even by the animals. Where were the deer? Moved elsewhere, that’s what, somewhere greener or more plentiful. She envied them their speed, their roaming nature. In her memory they were slight and summery, slipping through shade like a trick of the eye. She walked wider and wider, wearying herself in the search. If she could find them, she told herself, it would be alright. She’d survive if she could find the deer. Along the edges of the wood, the headlands full of skeleton grass, its seed heads frozen, rustling together with the thin memory of the sound of crickets. No droppings anywhere.
Had there ever been a winter as cold as this? There were days of illness, with her head swollen and burning like her feet. Flu maybe. Then two days of snow, with Anne dropping and feverish, and still she walked, partly because she was afraid to lie still in such cold. When finally she saw their tracks, neat slots in a field to the west of the wood, circling as if they’d been playing, trotting up along the fence line and then suddenly over and gone again, ghost deer, she cried with relief. Half mockery, half reward, she couldn’t tell which.
When the snow melted and she was well again, Anne went to bed for longer and longer periods. How long does a winter last? For goodness’ sake. Maybe when I wake up…Night after night, the pain in her hands and feet burning itself through sleep and into her consciousness. She dreamed that she opened her hands and spread the fingers with their fiery joints and stared. So this was it, winter had won. And this pain she felt, this was her withering at last, like the rest of the world. This was how it happened, fingers first, then wrist and elbow, shoulder, neck. She knew she was dying and she looked down at her hands expecting to see them shrunk to sticks, but the flesh on her outspread fingers was taut and inflamed. Something raged like fire or water under her skin. And now it was the terror of something that would burst out from herself, something that only the fragile barrier of her own skin held back. What if it broke? What if her skin couldn’t hold? If it split and let it out, this force that burnt and boiled under her surfaces, that she could see straining and stretching. Was that a crease in her hand or the beginning of a tear? And, as she watched, her fingers did burst and out from knuckle and fist and finger end pushed little leaves. Greening all over, in an agony of birth, her hands put forth shoots. Baby leaflets, delicately creased and furled, unfolding in front of her gaze until she was covered. All around her she heard the rustling of herself, a million leaves moving. And birds came and sat in her fingers until her arms ached with the weight of holding them all up so gently.
She woke with her cheeks wet, weeping with relief, to find the wood still locked in its own death and the trees waiting.
She crawled to the doorway in her bag. How far advanced was the morning – eight, nine? She milked in the winter any time. She couldn’t have survived without it. Breakfast of something, but not much. Sitting just inside her door with the day’s hunting ahead of her, she grumbled at the little birds that necessity had made into risk-takers. Old shyness forgotten in the search for food, they hopped over the end of her sleeping bag, flirting their tails, heads cocked, questioning. What makes you think I’ve got anything to spare? Go on. Get lost. Still, she shared what breakfast she had with them, shedding crumbs and complaining, and after everything was gone they went on fluttering back and forth, messing on her swaddled feet, bickering. Fox passed, gave Anne a sideways glance. Sodden and morose this morning. Even with his light and glancing tread, mud up to the hocks from the thaw. Anne clicked her tongue and reached behind her and threw him something extra that he took like a thief. No thanks, but recognition.
I won that time, Anne said to him from the warmth of her bag. I won. Then she sat nursing her hands to warm them, and rocked back and forth in her bag and steeled herself against getting up and going.
Rain, that morning, hard rain that made the boles of the trees and the wood of the hut black. Cold raining into your core. No point in hurrying until you saw whether it was going to ease up or not. When she did get up and she’d riddled her stove and got it set and found her cup, she set off. Dirty weather even without the rain. Grey and unrelenting. Heavy air and a grudging light. Why bother, Anne thought, banging her feet as she walked, if you can’t do better? The air poking at you with freezing fingers between the trees. She looped the cup on a string round her waist and put her hands under her armpits out of kindness to the cows. Dusky Plum was her favourite. Dusky Plum let down her milk uncomplaining, even for a cold hand. If only I had something to give her, Anne thought, as she made her way through the wood to the milking gat
e, taking her hands out every now and then, beating them together, moaning to herself and bellowing before jamming them under opposite arms again.
So she wasn’t expecting anything as she came to the edge of the wood. Hey up stranger. Anne stood stock-still with her arms still crossed and her mouth fallen. Hear you a bloody mile away. There was Steve, leaning on his forearms, so his head hung forwards over the gate and his great big shoulders were up by his ears, in a tartan overshirt with a rip by the pocket and the moisture from the air beading his eyebrows, and his long, long lashes, more like a cow than ever, breathing out great plumes of steam. Anne could have cried to see him again. She couldn’t tell whether she’d moved forward or stood still. She might have held out a hand, or put one to her open mouth, she didn’t know. She didn’t know whether or not she had smiled; only that, inside her and bigger, much bigger than herself, something live was burgeoning after all.
Been up a couple of times before but no sign. Thought I’d come and see that bloody hut of yours if you don’t mind. Shall I come over?
They walked back single file because the path was too narrow, Anne leading with her mouth still open and her eyes unseeing on the ground. The noise. Why had she been making all that noise? Every now and then she glanced back, not because she thought he wasn’t following, talk about hearing a mile away, wheezing and crashing about, but just to see him with her own eyes.
I’m still here. Hmm you haven’t lost me hmm yet.
So that was how easily Steve came back into your life. There he just was, as if nothing had happened, which it probably hadn’t, Anne couldn’t remember, and she sat there shaking her head now and then, at her stupidity and at the miracle of him, sitting in her hut, with his knees up to his chest almost, and of his own accord. Bloody tidy little hut you’ve made yourself here Anne. Bloody good job. And Anne, feeling that her smile was too wide and that tears, or something, threatened, looked at her flint floor and made much of brushing out a crack with her finger and tried to remember what indifference looked like and how to wear it.
Steve rubbed his hands and wanted to look at everything. The stove was bloody brilliant for instance. But he bet it could get pretty parky in here. A bit bloody parky last week, I should think, and Anne made light of her despair, and she was still here anyway, wasn’t she?
How are you keeping anyhow? How’s Mother?
Fine, Mother was fine. She’d like to see you Anne. Thought you’d forgotten us.
And Anne couldn’t bear her own petulance and looked at the floor ashamed and reddened and couldn’t find the words. Abandon them? The thought horrified her, she would never do that. She looked at Steve and still didn’t know how to say it.
Sorry? Half mumbled and tentative.
But Steve was only joking. They needed her back at the dump. The place was filling up with stuff that needed sorting out. Then Steve looked round the hut. What are you finding to eat Anne? You’re not going bloody hungry are you? Come back for a bite of breakfast Anne, Mother’d like to see you.
♦
She’d said yes without thinking and now, all the time they were walking back to the truck, there was one question going round and round on a loop in Anne’s mind, in letters as high as the advertisements in town. Been back, has she been back, Suzie, has she been? What if Suzie was there when they got to the dump? Better not to know. Face it when it comes, she thought. Breakfast and Steve and somewhere to go – you couldn’t fight that.
In the truck with the heater full blast and old Buster in his usual position, Anne began to thaw at last. She leant back against the seat and shut her eyes because of the pleasure and because of the pain flaring in her joints. Thawing hurts, when you’ve got cold enough. Over the bumps her head back, and for a moment the pain got the better of her. How long until spring Steve? As though she couldn’t cope, her voice so small it surprised her. And she opened her eyes to see Steve give her one of his gentle looks.
Any minute now Anne. Any bloody minute.
He walked her into the bungalow, his big hands on her shoulders. Look who I’ve brought to see you Mother.
Like she was a real surprise.
And Mother smiled so you could see the bridge and said, Hey up stranger, long time no see, just like her son.
That was the best day yet, they fussed over her so. They were proud of how she’d done. She’d done really well, Steve said. She’d made a right tidy little place, a stove and a bed, and he clapped Anne on the shoulder. She was a survivor that’s what. I tell you what Mother, she could teach some of them new recruits a bloody thing or two. We could have done with her in the Special Forces, and he laughed the old laugh and his tummy shook.
Mother sat by her gas fire and listened to it all and asked Steve questions as if Anne wasn’t there, like, How’d she make it Steve? And Steve told her what he’d seen and asked Anne himself, Where’d you get the timber then? Did you cut it yourself or what? Anne told them everything and they nodded their heads and clicked their approval with tongues and teeth and raised their eyebrows at each other in a good way, shaking their heads at her cleverness. She was a right bloody little genius. She was a good little fixer.
After breakfast they made her sit in the other chair next to the fire. Mother sat opposite nodding every now and then. You’ve done well you have, she said, every time Anne caught her eye. Anne drifted into sleep and they let her. They must have seen the dumb look in her eye, her inability to keep up the pretence of coping. She slept and woke and slept and woke and every now and then Steve would get up and go out, to take deliveries or whatever, and Anne would open a dazed eye to see the great bulk of him tiptoe in again and try to sit without waking her, before she fell back into warmth and unconsciousness once more.
And they let her be like that, she didn’t know for how long. They sat in silence and waited for her to surface. Eventually she woke. She looked from one to the other. I’m sorry Steve. Sorry Mother. I’m not used to the heat. She thought she must have dropped off. Maybe she should be getting back. But when she said it she could hardly keep her face from twisting and a stone of dread fell into her chest and lay there heavy.
No bother Anne. No bother at all, Steve said. And, It does you good a good sleep. You need a rest. I know, I’ve been there, haven’t I, Mother? Lived in a ditch for three months, I know what it’s like. You sit there. You can go when you’re ready, can’t she? And Mother nodded, repeating snatches of Steve’s conversation in support, nodding and shaking her head as the observation demanded. Good sleep. Ditch. When you’re ready. No bother at all.
How about a cuppa? Cup of tea and a biscuit. And then Steve’d make her some sarnies to take back. How about it Mother? Mother nodded, looking at Anne. Sandwiches can be a nice comfort to you, she told Anne. Know you’ve got something then, don’t you?
So they had the tea and Anne tried not to think about the dark of her hut and the damp coming up through the forest floor and the hard cold biting into her. She didn’t know if she could do it again. She said nothing, but she looked from Steve to Mother, as she drank. She wanted desperately to please them with her hardihood, but she didn’t think she could manage. How could she manage on her own in the cold, after this? She gave a game little smile, but her eyes said, Help me. Help me.
But Steve was going to fix her up. He wasn’t having her cold at night. He wasn’t having her cold in the day neither, come to that. She wasn’t going to be cold and she wasn’t going hungry any more. Not if he could help it. They had plenty to spare, didn’t they, Mother?
And Mother, who had been following his comments with close attention, picking out the odd word now and then, got herself in a muddle with nodding and shaking. Oh no, she said, catching up with herself and shaking confidently now, not cold. Can’t have that, being cold. She’d catch a chill, Steve, and she’d never get shot of it. And Steve stood looking down at Anne, his indoor shirt stretched tight at the buttonholes and nodded too. Mother was right. She didn’t want to go getting herself poorly.
; Did she have a coat? Steve wanted to know.
No, she didn’t.
Did she have any proper boots? Steve looked down at her feet.
No again.
Right then, see what we can do. And Anne heard him rummaging in the back room, where she’d never been – the bedroom perhaps. He was talking to himself while he looked. That would be about right. Where were those bloody boots? And other things muttered too low to hear. He came back with his arms full. First a military jacket. SBS regulation handout that was. Got you through all weathers. Dug themselves into a ditch in the Forklinds and lived out for three months. Never felt a thing. Warm as bloody toast that was. Put it on and have a see. He held it out to Anne. Anne got shyly out of her chair and Steve put her into the jacket, showing her how to do it right up. Just the job, what d’you reckon, Mother? She looks a right bloody little trooper. It had deep pockets, look, to keep your hands warm, although he had some gloves somewhere that he’d find in a minute. She should give the boots a try. Her feet looked much of a size with his. Pad them out a bit maybe but at least they’d keep out the weather.
♦
She arrived back in time to see the barn owl launch himself on his night shift, his great white wings beating against the dusk. Off down the side of the wood now, she heard him go, beating his bounds, marking out his map of screams. As if she hadn’t slept enough already, she crawled straight into her sleeping bag, to eat half of the packet of sarnies in the dark. The other half she hung in a plastic bag on a nail so it dangled inches above her ear. Too many robbers about in this wood. That thieving old fox for one. He wouldn’t be above stealing sandwiches no matter how many chickens he’d eaten.
It was easy after that. Steve’s coat gave her strength, and his boots. She felt protected wherever she went. She’d survive. Three months in a ditch and he never felt a thing. It was as if he’d suffered for her.
