Beneath the Old Oak

by Lisa Shambrook

  Soon a big pile of snow had accumulated in the yard and Meg stood with a bunch of twigs.

  “So what now?” asked Dad. “Look, I can make his body, right here, if you want?”

  “Can I make the head?” asked Meg.

  “Of course you can, don’t need to ask,” he replied. “Get rolling!”

  Mum handed Meg a snowball, and Meg began adding to it, then she rolled it through the snow, and it grew, bigger and bigger.

  “That’s about it,” said Mum. “Now put it on top.”

  Meg lifted the head and plonked it on top of the body her father had fashioned.

  “Perfect,” he said. “Now arms. Get the twigs out!”

  Meg pushed sticks into the snowman’s flanks and wrapped the scarf around its neck. “…and eyes.” She drove the wire into its head, giving it gleaming, black button eyes, and used a stick to dig a hollow for the carrot nose. Dad pushed a thick twig, horizontally, below the carrot for a mouth, and Mum placed the hat on its head.

  “I don’t think it needs gloves,” said Meg stepping back, “but it does need buttons, for a coat.” She ran indoors and came back with more buttons and wire. She pushed the buttons on and whipped out her phone again.

  “With us or without?” asked Dad.

  “Both,” said Meg, “and one with me. Dad, can you take it?”

  “With pleasure. Meg and Mr Snowman, would you both smile, please…”

  Meg grinned and grabbed the phone to see the photographs.

  “Is that going on your profile?” asked her dad.

  “Just the snowman, yes. I’ll upload it in a minute.” She glanced around. “Where’s Mum?”

  “Gone to make hot chocolates,” replied Dad, raising his eyebrow. Meg shared his look and grinned as her father winked. “This is going to be a good day!”

  Hot chocolate and whipped cream, freshly baked chocolate-chip cookies and a long afternoon walk through snow-filled lanes and crystalline trees. An enthusiastic chat with the neighbour about sudden days off school and work, and a game of Monopoly where even Mum didn’t get frustrated at going straight to jail without passing ‘Go’.

  However, as the day drew to a close and the bright February sun set, turning into a scarlet ball of fire in a crimson sky, Meg frantically wished for grey clouds and dark skies.

  “Red sky at night…” said Mum, and Meg’s heart sank.

  She wanted swirling grey clouds, heavy with unfallen snow, to thrust across the sky and drop their load on the unsuspecting countryside, just as it had the night before. She watched the weather forecast on the edge of her seat and prayed fervently before bed.

  She lay in the dark, Indy sharing her pillow, her photographs on her phone illuminating the night. Images of the morning’s snow filled her gallery.

  She smiled at the cheeky robin and then her snowman grinned out of the screen at her. Her parents stood behind him, her dad brandishing the spade, Mum rosy cheeked and laughing. The next picture showed Dad leaning on the spade and Mum leaning against him. Dad’s goofy smile filled his face, but Mum gazed at him with a sad expression. It was almost sorrow that emanated from the image, and Meg frowned. She thought Mum had been having a great day, filled with laughter and fun, but her countenance betrayed her.

  Meg swiped her finger across the screen to the next photo and pondered Mum’s melancholy face. Dad was oblivious, pulling a face at the snowman, but Mum stared past him, past the snowman, out of the picture and somewhere else.

  She scrolled, and Mum was back, her arm firmly around her husband’s waist and his gaze now fixed on her. They grinned at each other, and Meg relaxed. The next picture saw Meg standing behind her snowman, her arms embracing him. Then she pretended to strangle him, and Dad made his stick mouth wonky. The last picture was of the lone snowman, and was the one she’d uploaded to her profile page.

  Satisfied and tired, Meg turned off her phone and snuggled down under her covers. Indy purred by her head and Meg dreamed of snow.

  The crimson sunset had been accurate, and the morning bloomed in glorious sunshine, but Jack Frost had been at work and coated the land in an icy fretwork. Meg woke to find her curtains open and light flooding her bedroom. She smiled broadly as she saw the time; it was well past getting up for school. The light enticed her to the window and snow still concealed the garden. Frost decorated the greenhouse next door, its glass overlaid with lacy swirls, and the spider web hanging from the gutter above her window was crusted with sparkly ice.

  Meg listened to the sounds of movement downstairs and slipped into her robe and slippers. The aroma of yet more hot chocolate drifted up the stairs, and Meg hurried down. She was greeted by her mum and a mug.

  “No cream?” she asked as she took the mug and sat at the table.

  Mum hesitated. “No, it’s early, oh never mind.” She reached into the fridge and took out the can of squirty cream. “Here, I’d never’ve been allowed cream at breakfast, but then I’m not my mum!”

  Cream spurted onto Meg’s hot chocolate and spiralled, building a tall cone on top. “And sprinkles?” Meg asked.

  “Don’t push it!”

  Meg smiled and curled her fingers round the mug. The heat warmed her hands as she sipped. Waiting for it to cool, she absently picked at the wound in her palm. It was healing well, but she gently tugged at the ridge of harder skin cradling the edges of the cut.

  Mum wrapped her cardigan tighter round her body and cast a glance Meg’s way. “Leave it alone,” she remarked sternly. “I mean it, don’t touch it.”

  Meg snapped her hand closed and resumed stirring her hot chocolate.

  “So, no school?” Meg asked.

  “Not today, still closed because of the ice. That’s why I didn’t wake you earlier.”

  “Well, I’m happy with that! What about Dad?”

  “He’s gone in. I told him to be careful of black ice on the roads.”

  “He’ll be fine.”

  Mum nodded and began emptying the draining board and stacking up last night’s washing up. The clatter of plates rang out, and Meg watched her mum busy herself.

  “Are we doing anything today?” she asked, taking another sip. Glasses clinked as Mum thrust them into the cupboard three at a time, and knives and forks jangled as she separated them. Meg assumed Mum hadn’t heard so she asked again. “What can we do today?”

  Mum shrugged and shook her head. “Nothing much.”

  “We could go out, explore. That was so much fun yesterday! And is my snowman still out there?”

  “It’s not going anywhere, is it?” Mum said sharply. “It’s a snowman—can’t exactly get up and go…”

  Meg frowned. “I, I didn’t mean…”

  “Oh, it’s fine, I’m just grumpy today.”

  Meg clasped her mug and moved it to her lips while studying her mother. Mum banged her way round the kitchen. “You should get dressed.”

  “I will, just finishing my drink,” replied Meg, gulping it down. She stirred the last dregs and swallowed quickly, then pushed out her chair and took the empty cup into the kitchen. She stepped around her mother, rinsed the mug then left it on the surface. “Okay, I’ll go and get dressed.”

  Mum swung round as Meg moved out of the kitchen, the plastic measuring jug flipped out of her mother’s hand and clattered on the floor. Meg ducked out of the way and scooted across to the table. Mum grumbled under her breath.

  “I’m sorry…” Meg offered.

  “S’okay, but it could have been a glass or a knife. You need to be careful in the kitchen!”

  “I’m sorry.” Meg fidgeted by the table.

  “It’s fine, I’m fine, go and get dressed.”

  Meg hurried out of the room, trying to ignore the gnawing in the pit of her stomach. Back upstairs, she took a deep breath and collected her thoughts while she dressed. It was so beautiful outside, she didn’t want anything to damage her day, least of all Mum’s temper.

  She reached for her phone as she deliberated what to do with her se
cond spare day. She pressed the home button and swiped the screen and searched her social media. A single red notification stared out at her. She tapped on the notification loading the picture.

  Her snowman smiled at her and she scrolled down the page.

  Sienna Richmond had commented. ‘Snowmen? Really, Megan, how old are you? Four or fourteen?’

  Meg’s face burned, and tears pricked her eyes. Embarrassment flamed as she read it again, then again. She dragged her finger over the picture, scrolling up and down and the snowman just stared at her, smiling with its stupid twig mouth. A battery flashed up on the phone’s screen, a line slicing through it then the screen turned black. She grunted, dropped her phone on the duvet and scrabbled under the bed for her charger.

  Coming up empty, she slipped on her boots and brushed her hair rigorously. Angst grew with every unspent tear. Tight-chested, she hurried down the stairs. She breezed into the lounge and cheerily called out. “Mum, can I use your laptop?”

  “Not right now, I’m going to be using it.”

  Meg tried to control her voice. “Please, just for a minute. I’ll be really quick, and you can have it straight back.”

  “I said not right now.” Mum responded tersely from the kitchen.

  Meg’s voice wavered. “I just need to look something up then I’ll be done.”

  “I said No, Meg.”

  She tried a different tack. “There’s something on my page I need to delete.”

  “Then you can do it later. Your page isn’t going anywhere—like your snowman.”

  Meg bristled at the mention of the snowman. “I know it’s not going anywhere!” she protested. “That’s why I need it!” she added inaudibly.

  Meg threw herself into the armchair, curling up into a ball, listening resentfully to her mother’s activities in the kitchen, the ones that took her nowhere near her laptop. She stared at the computer sitting unconscious on top of the desk. She stared at her dead phone, willing the post to disappear, but she needed the laptop for that.

  Fifteen minutes later and impatience got the better of her. She walked into the kitchen where Mum stood against the counter, reading the reverse of a packet mix. She didn’t look up when Meg entered.

  “Mum…” she began, “could I just use the computer for a few minutes?”

  “I already said no, find something else to do,” Mum replied, still scanning the packet.

  “But…”

  Mum took a deep breath and closed her eyes, and Meg’s plea didn’t get any further. Meg noticed Mum’s grip on the packet tighten and the set of her jaw tensed, and she knew she would get nowhere. She knew that if she asked again, the packet was liable to whizz out of her mother’s hand and possibly decapitate Meg in one small action. Meg backed down.

  “I’m going out, leave you to work in peace for a bit,” she said in a measured tone, unwilling to start a fight, but wanting permission to leave.

  Another heavy breath was her answer, though she waited for the small nod of Mum’s head.

  “I’ll be back in a while,” she said, moving swiftly out of the kitchen.

  Her mother’s voice followed. “Don’t be long, don’t go too far, and be careful.”

  Meg seized her coat, hat and gloves and dashed out of the house.

  Tears smarted as she slid down the path and grabbed the gate post as she reached the pavement, but ice didn’t bother her and she was off up the street, not even glancing up at next door’s twitching nets. Today she trudged through the snow, relishing the crunch under her feet as she stomped out her anger. She stamped and skidded and slid as she went, her hand brushing snow off the tops of the walls along the pavement, and before long she pushed through the kissing gate. The path was churned up from yesterday’s walkers, but Meg barely noticed. She climbed over the fence and wandered around the edge of the field, taking the long route to the tree, and when she finally stood under its canopy, she began to gather handfuls of snow.

  She packed the snow into a hard, dense snowball and took aim launching it at the huge oak’s trunk. She missed, and laughed, slightly relieving her jangling tension as her laughter tinkled across the frigid air. She scooped another ball and threw it, missing again, then another and another, until her aim improved, and snowballs began raining down on the trunk. White splodges clung to the bark, falling only when they could cling no more, and still Meg catapulted one snowball after another.

  Meg finally dropped to the icy ground on all fours and sank back onto her knees. She stared up into the crown of the tree, letting out an angry, guttural cry. Her throat was raw with cold, and her eyes stung, and she crawled to the base of the oak.

  “It’s not fair…” she whispered. “It’s not fair…”

  No one responded; only the wind breathed through the branches, and the wind had no answer.

  Meg was sure her mother was broken, and she kicked through flurries of snow as she considered her mother’s state of mind. The sunshine failed to lighten Meg’s mood, and her brow remained furrowed as she walked. She was home before she realised.

  She let herself in the back door, noting the sparkling clean kitchen, the swept floor and vacuumed lounge. She glanced at the desk. The laptop had not been touched.

  Irritation sparked as she sank onto the sofa. Meg knew all about despondency and despair, but why couldn’t anyone tell her what was going on with Mum? She was old enough to see the crippling misery that often consumed her mother, but she had no way of dealing with it. She cast her own feelings aside to accommodate Mum’s sorrow, but that was fine. Meg’s real concern was the burden of not knowing why, not knowing the cause of the battles that played out in Mum’s mind, not knowing if maybe, just maybe, she had something to do with it.

  The house was quiet. Not even Indy wandered through and Meg wondered where her mother was. She curled up, listening to the clock ticking on the wall. She watched the sun trawl across the rosy beige walls, glinting on the picture frames as it crept around the room. She watched swirling motes of dust float in the light. She scrutinised her fingernails and picked at her cut again, until she could put off finding her mother no longer.

  She held her breath as she moved up the stairs.

  Maybe Mum had a headache…

  Meg tiptoed up, avoiding the third from the top stair completely, she knew how it creaked. At the top, she stared down the short corridor. The bathroom was empty, the door wide open, and as Meg sneaked forward she could see her own reflection in the cabinet on the wall. Mum’s bedroom door was half open.

  A sudden clanking sounded throughout the house, and Meg froze as the heating came on. Its low hum droned, and with heightened senses Meg heard birds outside, cars down on the main road and her mother’s steady breathing. She crept along the landing and paused by her parents’ door. She held her breath again, trying to peer into the room unseen. Mum’s tall, ornate cheval mirror stood against the window opposite the door, and Meg withdrew for fear of being reflected. Before backing off she caught a glimpse of her mum sitting on the bed with her head bowed. Meg peeked again.

  Mum sat cross-legged on the edge of her bed, her head bent and her mousy blonde hair falling across her face. Meg stared at her mother’s reflection, and balanced against the door frame. The reflection slightly distorted the image, and Meg couldn’t quite see what Mum was doing.

  Her mother was wholly occupied.

  Meg leaned further forward peering through the hinges of the door. She closed one eye to focus the other. The gap was narrow and her eye struggled to focus, and the door frame obscured most of her view, but Mum was clear beyond it.

  Her eye moved to Mum’s hand, and though the image was blurred, she could easily see hairdressing scissors in her fingers. The scissors were open, stretched open as far as they could go. Mum held one blade in her hand. Her arm rested outstretched across her lap, and she deftly slid the blade across the back of her arm a couple of inches above her wrist.

  Meg flinched, not from the flush of scarlet that appeared across her mot
her’s arm, but from her own audible intake of breath.

  Meg’s eyes widened and a shiver slid down her spine. Prickly heat spread throughout her body. Meg withdrew, stepping back, leaning against the wall, suddenly feeling both shaky and light headed. She leaned her cheek against its coldness and tried to stop her mind racing. She had to escape this moment of intense privacy. She glided across the landing, moving down the stairs one by one, again careful on the third from the top, and stole back into the lounge, clicking the door closed behind her.

  She sank into the sofa.

  All those little things that engaged her attention earlier, dust motes, the ticking clock, were of no consequence; nothing was of any consequence.

  Meg couldn’t get the image of her mother out of her head, and wondered why and how she could hurt herself like that. Fear swelled in her belly as she wondered if she’d been the catalyst. She stared at the clock without seeing it, her eyes blurring but dry of tears. Her cheeks flamed, and her hands were sweaty. Numbness embraced her, and she had no idea for how long she sat there lost in her thoughts.

  When she heard the third from the top stair creak, she focussed on the clock and realised it was way past lunch time. Mum breezed into the room with a smile.

  “Oh, you’re back, Meg, didn’t hear you come in.”

  Meg nodded mutely.

  “Been back long?” Mum asked cheerfully. “Did you enjoy the snow?”

  Meg nodded again, averting her eyes from Mum’s cardigan sleeve.

  “You cold?” Mum frowned. “You look like you’ve got a chill. You okay?”

  Meg nodded.

  “I’m making lunch, want anything? I’m starving!”

  Meg nodded and Mum laughed. “Are you okay, really, are you? You’re very quiet.”

  “I’m fine,” Meg squeaked.

  “I’ll make you a sandwich, yes?”

  Meg nodded.

  Mum gave another small laugh and walked out into the kitchen as her daughter’s eyes bore into her back.

  Meg couldn’t move from her chair. Her whole world had just changed. Nothing could change or have prepared her for what she’d seen. Now Mum wafted through the lounge with a smile on her face, the epitome of calm and collected, and Meg was lost amid turmoil.