The World in Winter

by John Christopher

  ‘I’ve been looking at your notes,’ McKay said, ‘for the Fratellini thing. I thought we might rush it through for Friday.’

  McKay had assigned it to him, as a low priority project, some weeks earlier. He objected:

  ‘We’re short of a lot of background material still.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘We wanted film of Fratellini himself, and of the Observatory. The team that’s gone out for the new Vatican excavations was going to handle that as well.’

  McKay wagged his thin face in negation. ‘We shall have to do without them. Topicality comes first. Next week the whole thing may be forgotten. Can you make up ten minutes?’

  ‘I should think so. How long do we give Wingate?’

  ‘Christ, do we have to use him again?’

  ‘We’ve paid for him.’

  ‘These term contracts are a mistake. There are some faces and voices that just don’t wear well. Wingate’s got one of each. All right, give him three minutes – and make sure he doesn’t overrun.’

  ‘He knows his stuff.’

  McKay said gloomily: ‘I despise that kind of mind. We’re all a knowing lot of bastards in this trade – we have to be – but at least we only claim to know things on a superficial level. These science journalists talk as though they know the lot. I’d like to see him drop a really monumental clanger.’

  ‘It wouldn’t do the programme any good.’

  ‘Well, he could drop it in his weekly sermon in the Sunday press. Can I leave all this to you, Andy?’

  ‘Yes. Do you want a cancellation cabled to the team in Rome?’

  ‘Cancellation?’

  ‘Of the Fratellini interview, since we shan’t have time to use it.’

  McKay considered this. ‘No, I should let it stand. We may be able to use it some time. In the spring, maybe. A retrospect on the Fratellini Winter.’

  ‘If there is one.’

  McKay shrugged. ‘On “What Happened to the Fratellini Winter”, then. We can use it either way. Besides, Bill Dyson’s got a girl-friend in Milan. He’d never forgive me if I lost him a chance of looking her up.’

  Over the week-end, the snow stopped falling. There was a thawing rain on Saturday afternoon and Sunday, and on Monday it was clear and cold, with small clouds skating over a chill blue sky. In the pub where David and Andrew met, by contrast, it was warm and stuffy, apart from occasional piercing draughts when the street door was opened.

  ‘A whisky chaser,’ David suggested, ‘against that Fratellini Winter?’

  ‘Just this one, then. I’ve got some work this afternoon.’

  ‘So have I, but I’ll see it better through a slight haze. I saw your programme on Friday.’

  ‘Did you? Any comments?’

  ‘You were spreading a certain amount of alarm and despondency, weren’t you? Talking about ice ages.’

  ‘Did it worry the Home Office?’

  ‘Not officially. Quite a talking point, though. And I’m told Harrods had a run on skis the next morning.’

  ‘Trevor Wingate’s the trouble. We’ve contracted for a dozen appearances and we have to use him or forfeit the money. It would be better to forfeit, but the accounts people would never stand for it.’

  ‘I don’t like that grin of his,’ David said. ‘Too much of the sneer in it.’

  ‘Not telegenic at all, but it took us several programmes to realize that. It does sometimes. All we can do is feed a line into him that will capture audience interest on its merits. So we gave him the new ice age hypothesis to put over.’

  ‘You probably scared some timid viewers.’

  ‘We did say it was extremely unlikely.’

  ‘In small type. What really came over was the pictures of glaciers rolling down the Welsh mountains and polar bears sunning themselves on the ice in the Pool of London.’

  ‘We’ve always prided ourselves on our impact value.’

  ‘I’ve been looking things up,’ David said. ‘There seem to be a number of different theories as to what caused the ice ages, but the fluctuation in solar radiation one is among the healthiest. A bloke called Penck worked it out. Do you realize that an overall drop of about three degrees really could bring the glaciers back to northern Scotland?’

  ‘I’ve done some homework, too, remember,’ Andrew said. ‘Precipitation counts for more than temperature levels in producing ice caps. Siberia’s as far north as Greenland, and as cold, but there’s no Siberian ice cap. The moisture-bearing clouds don’t penetrate so far into the land mass.’

  ‘Well, hell’s flames, we’re not likely to run short of moisture-bearing clouds in these offshore islands, are we?’

  ‘Anyway, the drop’s inconsiderable. Fratellini figures on a fall of between two and three per cent in the solar energy reaching the outer layers of the atmosphere. There’s a normal variability of about three per cent due to local and temporary fluctuations in the sun.’

  ‘But we are going to be colder. That’s definite, isn’t it?’

  ‘A white Christmas or two, perhaps. We might even roast an ox on the Thames again. Most authorities seem to agree with Fratellini that the fluctuation’s likely to be short-lived – less than six months probably.’

  ‘But it might last longer?’

  ‘In the last six and a half centuries there have been two advances and two retreats by the European glaciers. They increased in the western Alps at the beginning of the fourteenth century, and retreated again in the fifteenth. Towards the end of the sixteenth century they advanced again, in both the eastern and western Alps, and in Iceland. They went on advancing up to the first half of the nineteenth century, and then turned tail. The icepacks have been retreating all over the world since then. It might be time for them to make another small advance.’

  ‘Worth a flutter in home heating appliances on the Stock Exchange?’

  ‘As long as you understand that it’s a flutter. If it’s only a temporary downward swing, as the climatologists think, there may be an upward swing to follow. Sunburn lotions may pay off better. The trend has been towards higher temperatures for the last century.’

  ‘I preferred the programme,’ David said. ‘Not polar bears, perhaps, but think of a cold clear frozen Thames, voices hushed in the quiet air, the tinkle of sleigh-bells, maybe, along the Embankment.’

  ‘I didn’t know you were such a sentimentalist.’

  ‘All we cynical realists are. It’s our only defence against ourselves. I used to keep a collection of Christmas cards: the kind with snow scenes – peasants gathering firewood against the sunset, cottages on the edge of the woods, coaching inns … You know.’

  ‘And robins.’

  ‘No, no robins. One has one’s standards.’

  ‘What happened to the collection?’

  ‘I got discouraged. My elderly aunts died, or went religious and sent artistic Nativity scenes. All I get now are classical reproductions and would-be humorous things. It didn’t seem worth going on.’

  ‘I’ll look one out for you this year.’

  ‘That’s a kind thought.’

  Andrew looked at his watch. ‘Time I was getting back. I suppose you don’t feel like a bachelor evening tonight – a quiet pub-crawl? Carol’s going over to Ealing to visit a rather revolting woman she used to go to school with.’

  David shook his head. ‘I can’t make tonight. Why not drop in on Maddie – you could cheer each other up.’

  ‘Perhaps. I’ll see.’

  In the end, though, he did not. Instead, he came across one of a party of young Nigerians, who were over as a television study group, wandering aimlessly about the studios. He asked Andrew directions, in cultured English and a voice somewhat melancholy in tone, and on impulse Andrew asked him to come and have dinner. He took him to his Club, chiefly in the hope of encountering the Secretary, an Anglo-Indian who disliked the black races as much as Andrew disliked him. The hope was unfulfilled, but the young Negro’s naïvety and gratitude were pleasant, and the evening passed
well. Carol was not yet in when he got home. He went to bed, and was almost asleep when he heard her opening the front door.

  4

  Andrew had to spend a week in Sweden, planning one of the special half-hour programmes which they did, from time to time, on different countries. He had sent a card to the Cartwells, giving them the address of his hotel, and on the morning he was due to leave there was a card in reply from Madeleine. It expressed the hope that he was having a good time, and ended: ‘Come and see me, when you get back.’ The injunction puzzled him slightly – it implied some kind of urgency without making it explicit – but he put it in his pocket and then forgot about it in the confusion of departure.

  Carol always met him at the airport after trips of this kind. He went to the Bar to find her, and saw her sitting at a table by herself, looking towards the door. Her face had a tense look, and he wondered if she were angry about something. He would need to find out the trouble, delicately, and jolly her out of the mood.

  ‘Hello, darling,’ he said. ‘Good to be back.’

  ‘Had a good time? You look well.’

  ‘Fairish. Too much food and drink. Would you like another here, or shall we push on home?’

  She disliked airport buildings and was usually glad to get away. He was surprised when she said:

  ‘Get me another, will you? I’m drinking gin and peppermint.’

  Andrew got himself a whisky and brought the drinks over. It was probably best to behave normally, and follow her lead. Whatever it was would come out soon enough. He saw that her blue eyes had fixed on his with a probing steadiness that disturbed him; he picked his drink up, and looked at that.

  She said: ‘I’m going to leave you, Andy.’

  He was aware of a slight shiver that ran across his shoulders and down his spine; he hoped the tremor had not shown. The girl behind the bar called something to a colleague at the back, and her voice grated on him, raucous, almost unbearably harsh. He tried to look back into his wife’s eyes, but found he could not.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Carol said. ‘I think it’s best to be direct about it.’

  He looked at her hand, at the dull red polish of the fingernails, and thought of the times he had watched her paint and dry them; and of all the other small intimacies of their life together. From now on, for him, she would be groomed and clothed – friendly or hostile but always a stranger.

  He asked her: ‘Who is it?’

  ‘David.’

  He was not too numb to be amazed.

  ‘David? David Cartwell?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s you he’s been seeing these past weeks?’

  She spoke with some impatience. ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘But …’ He choked back the trite pointless words which came automatically to his tongue. In a level voice he said: ‘Sweetheart, you want time to think things out.’

  She shook her head. ‘No, I don’t.’

  He had felt no jealous resentment when she mentioned David’s name, but now he began to resent him on her behalf. For him this was just one more in a series of adventures; Carol had taken it more seriously. He wanted to explain this to her without hurting her. It was not easy.

  ‘David,’ he said, ‘– I don’t want to run him down or anything, but I told you what Madeleine said about him …’

  ‘You mean, that he’s made something of a practice of this? I know that. In the past.’

  ‘And you think it’s going to stop?’

  In a dry voice, she said: ‘One takes chances on people, doesn’t one? You did, on me.’

  ‘It was a good bet for eleven years. I’m not prepared to write it off yet, either.’

  Her eyes searched his, and again he looked away.

  She said: ‘You’re not going to make trouble, Andy, are you – about a divorce? I’m not asking you to do anything yourself; just divorce me on the evidence I provide.’

  Andrew said: ‘We need another drink.’ She made no reply, and he took their glasses to the bar for replenishing. This time he got himself a double. When he brought them back, he started off on a prepared line:

  ‘David’s a fascinating character. I can see that myself, and I suppose the sexual angle adds quite a bit. His technique looks impressive, too. And we’ve been married a long time. It’s not so surprising that you should have gone temporarily overboard.’ She tried to say something, but he overrode her. ‘I know it seems serious to you. Perhaps it is serious, for him and you. Perhaps you’ll make a reformed character out of him. But let’s wait and see about that, shall we?’

  She said, with the first signs of anger: ‘Don’t try so hard to be so bloody reasonable. What’s the next thing – that I go off by myself somewhere to get it all straightened out in my mind?’

  ‘I can’t see it would do any harm.’ He was a little angry himself. ‘It’s not so funny from my side, either, remember.’

  ‘I want David,’ Carol said. ‘I’m asking you to co-operate.’

  ‘And the children?’

  ‘I want to keep them if I can, and I don’t think you would really want them for the whole of their holidays. You can have any reasonable access, of course.’

  The calculation infuriated him. He said:

  ‘And when David realizes that you’re getting too serious, and backs out the way he’s done before – what do you do then?’

  She sighed wearily. ‘We’re in love. Can’t you understand that?’

  ‘I can see that you are. And that he’s wanted you to believe that he is.’

  ‘Look,’ Carol said, ‘I know David. I probably know him better than I’ve ever known you. We’re the same type.’

  He thought he knew what she was referring to. ‘Leading a bit of a wild life before we were married doesn’t make you the same type as David,’ he told her. ‘Being as good-looking as you were, and mixing in that crowd, it was inevitable. But that’s nearly twelve years ago.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘You probably have a bit of a hankering for your youth. We all do. That doesn’t mean you would really go back to that kind of life if you had the choice.’

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I have to tell you, don’t I? To think I used to worry at one time about your being suspicious. Of George Price, particularly.’

  ‘George Price?’

  ‘And others. That kind of life, Andy – I never did abandon it. There’s no harm in your knowing now.’ She sat back, putting her hands together on her lap. ‘It might make things easier for you, I suppose.’

  He felt the involuntary shiver again, and the clamminess of sweat down his back and along his legs.

  ‘How many others?’

  ‘Three or four. None of them was important, before David. That’s how I recognize the difference.’ The blue eyes stared at him. ‘I never turned you out of my bed before, did I? But I couldn’t sleep with you now.’

  His legs were trembling; for the moment he wanted only to end this nightmare, to get away. He said:

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘For the present, you could go to a hotel. Or I’ll move out, if you prefer that.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ll go. That’s all right.’

  ‘Did you get my card?’ Madeleine asked. ‘I wasn’t sure that it would arrive before you left.’

  Andrew nodded. ‘Yes. I got it.’

  ‘It was difficult to know what to say. I knew from David what was waiting for you, but I couldn’t mention that, of course. I thought you might not want to come here afterwards, so I wrote asking you.’

  ‘I would have come anyway.’

  ‘I’m glad. What are you doing – where are you living, I mean?’

  ‘I’ve booked in at a hotel for the time being. I haven’t had time to look around yet.’

  She smiled sadly. ‘I suppose it wouldn’t do for me to take you as a lodger. All sorts of possible trouble with the Queen’s Proctor.’

  ‘David?’

  ‘A friend of his who’s gone to Spain has len
t him his flat. It’s just off the King’s Road.’

  ‘Madeleine, I don’t understand.’ He looked at her; it was as easy to look into her eyes as it had been hard with Carol. ‘Did you know it was Carol when you told me there was another woman?’

  ‘Not for certain, but I was pretty sure.’

  ‘She’s told me that – this isn’t the first time.’

  ‘I guessed that, too. I guessed that when I realized David was interested in her.’ She spoke with faint bitterness. ‘It’s not the chaste women that appeal to him. I suppose it should be counted in his favour.’

  ‘And the appeals don’t last. All right – tell me how long it’s going to be before this one peters out. You know how he operates, and I think I have a right to the information.’

  ‘He’s asked me to divorce him, too.’

  There was a silence. Andrew said:

  ‘Why should he be serious now?’

  ‘Why, indeed? I had thought, some day, it might happen – I could hardly feel secure, could I? But one expects it to be a younger woman. Carol’s six years older than I am.’

  ‘Seven. She was thirty-two in June.’

  ‘David said thirty-one.’ They looked at each other, and Madeleine began to laugh. ‘It’s silly, isn’t it? As if a year matters, or seven years.’

  ‘Can I get myself a drink?’

  ‘Yes. Get me one, too. Scotch, I think.’

  From the sideboard, he said to her: ‘I understand it up to a point. They’ve both been cheating for years, so there was every reason for them to get together. It went well. I was as ignorant as I’d always been, and you were as prepared to turn a blind eye, and take him back when he got tired of it. Then what happened?’

  ‘Calling them cheats doesn’t help, does it? And even cheats have feelings. I don’t know Carol well enough to know why she fell in love with David – except that I know he’s lovable. As for him, well, she’s very lovely. Lovelier than any of his other conquests. And then, if she fell for him … As I said, he’s never pursued chaste women. It was always kept very much on the physical level, on both sides. He was so busily concerned with demonstrating that he could master their bodies that their hearts just didn’t enter into it. Carol’s the first one who’s really gone after him. He would feel guilty if he didn’t love her in return.’