“Shall we have a snowball fight, Daddy?” she says. Her nose and cheeks glow red.
“Why not?” I say.
In a sudden burst of sibling friendliness, Hannah and Oscar decide that they will be on the same side. Dad versus the kids. Hannah immediately gets to work on structuring exactly how the game will play out. She requests that I stay where I am, slightly elevated on the patio near the house. This is my base. Hannah takes Oscar down to the bottom of the garden where they can use the space behind the shed as their base. The distance of thirty or so feet between bases is designated ‘nobody’s business’ by Hannah. I think she means ‘no man’s land’ but decide not to correct her.
They hurry to the bottom of the garden to ‘build snowballs’ and their bright coats disappear behind the shed. I crane my neck to see whether I can see them through the shed windows but there is no sign of them. I get to work building my own ammunition store.
All is eerily quiet.
I’m on my hands and knees, rolling and patting yet another ball of snow, when a battle cry cracks the silence. It is a loud, high-pitched scream, not unlike a banshee that has just been released from a box. It takes me by surprise, and I look up to see Hannah tearing up the garden. She throws her first snowball, which fails to reach halfway into no man’s land.
I scoop up a ball of snow and throw it as hard as I can toward the shed. My idea is to momentarily startle them with the loud bang of impact. Then I’ll have time to make direct hits to each of their turned backs. Unfortunately, in my rush, my aim is slightly off. As soon as I release the snowball I know that the relative wholesomeness is about to disappear. As my missile gathers speed, Oscar appears from behind the shed. He is smiling. And then, bang! It hits him with a dull thud. In most other circumstances it would be described as a perfect shot. It hits him directly in the face and instantly separates, turning his pink face icy white. The snowball lifts him off his feet and he disappears into a toddler-shaped hole in the snow. Hannah looks at me and I look at her. And then a scream begins, a scream reaching such a pitch that I fear it could melt the snow.
CHAPTER_ELEVEN
Take me to the other side.
It takes me close to an hour to get Oscar settled again. I struggle to get his clothes off whilst trying to stem the flow of blood that drips from his nose. I’m staggered by the number of colours he has managed to get over his face. His crying seems to be endless, loud screams descending into muted whimpers. I get the feeling after a while that the little shrieks punctuating the quiet are simply for attention. Any pain must have gone by now.
Once the bleeding finally stops, I wrap him in a blanket and carry him into the lounge. I switch on the fire and deposit him in my chair in front of the television. He has a saucer-shaped red mark covering his eyes, nose and mouth and he reminds me of the Japanese flag. I push the atlas to one side and sit on the floor next to the chair, stroking his leg through the blanket.
The alien boy is still on television, and I press the button on the remote to confirm that he is on all morning. He is. Inwardly, I breathe a sigh of relief.
We are interrupted by a knock on the patio doors. Hannah is smiling and beckoning to me with a maroon mitten. Her breath floats like chimney smoke above her. Oscar doesn’t appear to notice her arrival. I quietly crawl under Oscar’s line of sight and reach the window. Her mittened point is not unlike a Nazi salute and I follow her arm to where she is looking. In the middle of the garden is a snowman, about the same size as her. She has stuck eyes and a mouth on with what I hope are pebbles and not Cliff’s early-morning deposits.
She is beaming and I smile back. It’s pretty impressive. She mouths the word ‘carrot’ to me and pulls her shoulders into a questioning shrug. I nod and slide across the floor backwards. I manage to make it between my chair and the sofa and through the door. I’m not sure whether Oscar noticed, but if he did, he doesn’t seem to care.
I lie in the hall for a moment, expecting a loud scream that never comes, and then I get to my feet and go into the kitchen. Hannah is waiting outside at the back door, and I am blasted by swirling snow as I pull the door open. It’s colder than I remembered. I pass the carrot through the small gap as if I’m afraid of getting my hand bitten off by a bloodthirsty reindeer. On the other side of the door, Hannah doesn’t take the carrot. I pull the door open a little more widely, the snow whipping my face. Hannah is watching a robin. I prod the carrot into her shoulder and she turns around.
“Thanks, Dad,” she says.
I smile and begin to push the door closed. Her welly appears and, like a persistent door-to-door salesman, she wedges the door open.
“Hannah…” I say weakly.
“Are you coming outside, Dad?”
I don’t have time to answer before she puts her hands together as if to pray and says, “Pleeeeeeaaaaaassssssssse.”
I’ve only just got warm again and going back outside is the last thing I want to do. But there is something about the innocent wonder in her eyes. The way that it appears my presence outside will bring her untold joy. Her mouth is wide and her pink smile seems to connect directly to my heart. The way that she is standing – like a choir boy, a carrot for a candle – is the clincher.
I don’t want to go outside.
“Dad?” she says hopefully.
“Tell you what, you give the snowman his nose and I’ll get my wellies on.”
She smiles and removes her foot.
I go back into the house and pop my head around the lounge door. Oscar is asleep. I turn and make my way back to the lean- to. I sigh and put on my coat.
We take various photos of Hannah and the snowman before heading to the front of the house. Hannah has agreed to help me clear the drive ready for her grandparents’ arrival the following morning. It is part of my life’s routine that Lisa’s parents come over every other Sunday. My father died when I was ten. When I left home for university, a decade later, my mother left as well. It was almost as if her job was done. A quick clap of her hands to remove the dust and she headed on what seems to me to be one long holiday. She travels from place to place, using the many hundreds of thousands of pounds my father left. Some places she settles in for a year or two, others she moves on from fairly quickly. I’ve not seen her for a few years now; in fact, she’s never met Oscar. I know this because Lisa keeps reminding me. My mother and I do keep in touch, but it’s on her terms. I don’t mind; it’s just the way it is.
“D’ya wanna play, Hannah?” a little voice says.
I turn to see Hector peeping over the wall that separates us from our neighbours. Hector and his mum live in the house that is attached to ours.
Hannah looks at me. “Can I?” she asks.
“Of course you can,” I say. Really, I want to say no. After all, I have just got changed to come back outside to be with her. Now, within moments, she’s gone, and I’m cold again and alone in a place I don’t want to be.
“Yay!” says Hannah, her excited cry following her out of the drive and into the two feet of snow on the street. A moment later she is standing next to Hector.
“Hi, Dad!” she says.
“Hi,” I say. There is obviously an inflection in my voice that even at her age she picks up on. “Are you okay?” she says. “Of course, why?”
“You sound sad.”
“’Course I’m not,” I lie, my voice sounding jaunty.
“You sound it.”
“I’m fine. Now go and play.” “Have I made you sad?” she says. “No. I’m fine.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Really.”
I make my biggest, sincerest smile. It seems to convince her. “Okay,” she says, “just so long as you’re sure.”
“I am,” I say.
“Good.”
Hector looks puzzled and then his face clears. “Let’s do it!” he shouts.
“Yeah, let’s!” shouts Hannah.
A moment later, they have disappeared down the side of the house and into Hector’s bac
k garden.
All is quiet again.
I lean against the wall and notice that Bill has already been out and cleared his drive. Snow is piled neatly on either side of the drive, which rises up a straight incline from the road. A neat wall of snow remains up the middle. He is standing at the window in the warmth of his lounge. It looks peaceful and quiet through his window. Life looks slow. All milestones achieved and accounted for. He and his wife have made it this far. Their life is quiet and settled. A steady flow of tea and warmth and quietness and being able to do what they wish when they wish. It is far away from the stop/start of my life. The constant changing of emotions. My on-off-on-off-on-off-on-off binary existence which changes from minute to minute.
I’d do anything to be them right now.
CHAPTER_TWELVE
“He’s staring again.”
“Who, dear?”
Rosie couldn’t be certain – her hearing wasn’t as good as it used to be – but she thought that Bill tutted.
“The same one who always stares.”
Rosie looked up from her book. She shook her head and smiled. Today, her husband looked small against the backdrop of the window. She wasn’t sure whether it was because everything surrounding him was white. It was still snowing heavily, but the sky was so white that the flakes looked more like grey shadows.
“And so do you, dear,” she said. Bill turned around. “I do what?”
“Stare. That’s why you see Richard.”
“Who’s Richard?” he said.
It was Rosie’s turn to tut. “The neighbour across the road,” she said. “Come and have some tea.”
She patted the cushion next to her and smiled. Bill walked over unsteadily and sat alongside his wife. He lifted the smallest coffee table from the nest of tables they had received as a golden anniversary gift from Samantha and placed it closer to Rosie. The cups and saucers shook and clinked together as he did.
“Thank you,” she said. She removed the woollen tea-cosy from the large silver teapot and stirred the tea leaves around inside. She replaced the lid and looked at Bill. He was watching her intently.
“It was nice of Kevin to do the drive,” she said. Bill nodded. “Very,” he said.
Rosie wasn’t sure what had made her husband so solemn that day. She was never quite sure what would trigger a change in his mood. One moment he would be smiling, and the next he would have drifted into one of his dark moods, and once he was there it was just a matter of waiting until he returned again.
They had been up early, as usual, and played Scrabble together whilst Kevin had been outside with the shovel, moving the snow into neat piles on either side of the drive. Both she and Bill had been outside to tell him that they weren’t planning on going anywhere, and she had told him that he really shouldn’t trouble himself.
But Kevin had carried on regardless, and aside from the scraping of metal against the brick driveway, all was silent in the Marsden house. Bill had smiled wryly a few times during the Scrabble game when, as usual, Rosie had used up all her tiles with another magnificent seven- or eight-letter word. At that point, he had seemed to be in a good mood.
And then something had happened and his mood had changed. At the end of the game, whilst she had counted up the points, he had shuffled through to the front door to speak with Kevin, and when he came back he was sombre. Morose. What had happened she didn’t know, and she knew that there was no point in asking. When Kevin popped his head round to say goodbye, Bill hadn’t even acknowledged him. He had just remained in his chair, reclined fully with his feet up. His stare empty. Kevin had shrugged in acceptance and it was left to her to thank him.
She was amazed that Kevin still called around as often as he did. In fact, far more now than when Samantha was alive. It seemed that he made up excuses to pop in. Rosie didn’t mind, of course; she loved Kevin like her own son. But she did worry what he would do once she and Bill were no longer around. Where would he go then? She supposed he’d just throw himself further into his work. But it wasn’t humanly possible to do many more hours than he was already doing. She had hoped that he would have moved his life on by now. It had been four years, after all. She had hoped that he would find a new companion to share the rest of his life with. Somebody like Kevin deserved to share his time with another. He was so kind. So caring. So thoughtful. It was a travesty that somebody in the world was missing out. She also feared, though, that whilst he called in at the house every day to see his in-laws, the opportunity to meet someone new would never arise.
She poured the tea and popped a small brown rock of sugar into Bill’s. Then she stirred in the milk and slid the cup across the coffee table to Bill. He didn’t look at her.
Rosie lifted her cup and they drank their tea in silence. His mood could last the remainder of the day.
CHAPTER_THIRTEEN
Unlucky for you or me or some.
It takes me over an hour to clear a space large enough for a second car. My task is made far more difficult by the fact that I am trying to clear the drive silently so as not to wake Lisa, who is still asleep in our bedroom directly above. The other problem is that our drive is so small that it is difficult to know exactly where to tip the snow. I end up piling it on top of the small quarter-circle flowerbed in the corner. The conifers and a small palm tree I planted last summer will now without question be crushed beyond recognition. Avalanched beneath.
I doubt they’ll survive.
Hannah appears on the other side of the wall. She is shaking a little too dramatically, but I get the picture that she is cold. Her teeth chatter but not in any particular rhythm or pattern, which suggests that she may be adding her own dramatic flavour to the performance.
“Are you cold?” I say.
She nods, which starts her teeth chattering properly. “Come on then,” I say. “Let’s get you inside.”
Hannah puts out her arms, just as she would when she was a toddler. I smile, shake my head and then lift her over the wall and onto our side. She smiles at Hector as she is elevated above him. I carry her to the front door, and holding her with one arm, I struggle to pull her wellies off with the other. She tries to help by kicking them as I pull, and we see one disappear into the snow-covered conifers that line the drive. I stand her on the mat inside the porch and unzip her coat. She pulls off her scarf and mittens and drops them on the floor. A moment later she is through the second door and into the hall.
“Don’t run,” I begin to shout, stopping myself halfway through the first word. The rest of the sentence fades to nothing. I needn’t have bothered, as I see Lisa coming down the stairs as I close the door. I wonder whether anyone found it unusual that I shouted ‘Don’ into the hallway.
I finish clearing the drive and retrieve Hannah’s welly from the tree. It is soaking wet and I place it on the radiator at the bottom of the stairs as I walk inside.
I am suddenly filled with a crippling fear as I hear the sounds inside the house. Screaming. Crying. Shouting. It is difficult to discern who is making which noise, but it doesn’t take a genius to work out that all three occupants of the house are adding to the overall volume. I turn around, quietly close the door behind me and walk down the side of the house.
There, where the lean-to juts out and narrows the path, I sink down and crouch, my back against the side of the house. The piles of snow that have drifted against the wall creep over the top of my wellies and drip like candle wax inside my boots. After a few minutes I can feel the wetness at the bottom of my boots, under the soles of my feet. Two small puddles, now trapped inside a waterproof cocoon.
And there I am.
The puddle.
Trapped inside something I created. A place that wherever
I go, I cannot escape.
I lean against the house and watch the snow continue to fall. The snow falls much more calmly here, the blustery wind blocked by the house next door.
I am not sure how long I stay here, but I quickly scramble to my feet when the light c
omes on in the lean-to. I don’t want to have to explain to Lisa the reason I am shivering outside in the snow, the reason I am avoiding my family.
A moment later, I reach the back door and push it open, just as Lisa is pulling from the other side.
“Morning,” she says, smiling. Snowflakes immediately stick to her hair.
“Hi,” I say, stepping into the house.
She takes a step backwards, managing to avoid stepping on the roller boots, which are now inexplicably in the middle of the floor. I lean forward to kiss her and she turns her cheek.
“Not brushed your teeth yet?” I say.
She shakes her head. Tiny drops of melting snow leap from her hair. Lisa asks whether I want a drink and heads through to the kitchen. I ask for tea and begin the task of taking off what seems like a hundred layers of clothing.
I sit at the kitchen table, down to my boxer shorts and t-shirt. Everything else is wet. Lisa hangs what she can fit on the radiator whilst I drink my tea.
“Where are the kids?” I say.
“Lounge,” she says without turning to me. “Playing?”
“TV.”
“How did you sleep?” I ask.
This is a supremely important question in our house. Lisa’s sleep or lack of sleep can make or break an entire weekend. She suffers from sleep apnoea, which seems to get worse when she is stressed. A lack of sleep will turn her into a formidable opponent, hungry to disagree or contradict anything that is said. Especially by me. Too much sleep makes her drowsy for the day. Like a hibernating bear just awakening a few days after spring has begun. She tends to park herself on the sofa in the lounge and drift in and out of sleep. She almost certainly doesn’t shower or dress. And so the question I ask is of the utmost importance.
“Er, not bad,” she says, picking the ice off the top of my socks. It falls into the sink.
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