The Ice is Singing

by Jane Rogers

  She gave Bill his tea in silence and he turned on her, raising his voice above the telly.

  ‘Haven’t you got a civil word for me, bitch? Lost your tongue? I bet you were gabbing to that retard before I came in, weren’t you? What’s wrong with me?’

  She shook her head in silence, turning away, but he grabbed her arm and twisted it up behind her back. Involuntarily, she screamed. Gary’s white face appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Let me go, you bastard.’ Gary, standing in the doorway, began to clap his hands with terror, shouting, ‘No no no no’ in rhythm, like a football supporter.

  ‘Doncha like it?’ Bill leered at him. He yanked Leonie’s arm up a notch.

  ‘No no no no no!’ The boy’s high-pitched voice was nearly screaming.

  ‘Wanta see what grownups do, Gary?’ asked Bill. ‘Wanta see what big men do to women?’ Bending Leonie’s arm he forced her to the ground, and holding her twisted arm still with his right he yanked up her skirt with his left, and began to tear at her underclothes. ‘It’s what your Mummy likes to do, kid. Has she done it with you, eh? Better ask her to, eh?’

  ‘Nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh –’ The boy’s voice was a whisper now, his face round-eyed and terrified, his hands bumping together in a fast frenzy. Bill fumbled at his zip, finally letting go Leonie’s arm to get two hands to it, and she managed to rear up and hit him. They fought across the room, knocking over the sofa, and Leonie screamed ‘Help me, Gary!’

  The boy stood rooted to the spot, shaking his head now to the same intolerable rhythm as his hands, the heels only meeting in a swift pattering drumbeat accompaniment. Bill was stronger, and pinioned her again on the other side of the overturned sofa. He made a few quick thrusts, grunted, and was off within a minute. As Leonie heaved herself up, gasping for breath, she looked at the boy’s face and saw that he was not even seeing her; his eyes, fixed on the middle distance, were lost in a trance of terror. Bill pushed past him in the doorway, thumping him on the shoulder as he went.

  ‘That’s what big boys do, Gary. They stick it in, see.’ She heard him go into the bedroom and slam the door. Her arm ached badly where he’d twisted it. She pulled her clothes around her and crossed to Gary.

  ‘Nuh nuh nuh nuh – ’ The trembling head and twitching hands continued their motion, the breaths quick with terror.

  ‘Gary,’ she said. ‘Gary, you thick bastard – shut it.’ She shook him roughly by the shoulders. ‘Quiet.’

  She led him into the kitchen and made him sit down. There was silence.

  ‘Cup of tea,’ she said. ‘Shall we make a cup of tea?’

  He did not reply. Leonie sat down carefully at the other end of the table, and began to cry.

  He’s my baby. He’s mine. I made him. And when he come back – after that meningitis – all sad and floppy – it’s me what coped with it. Me what stayed up nights, nursing him. Me what changed his nappies and mopped up his piss and shit for years, not months like with the others. Me what loved him.

  He’s mine. Right. He’s like – part of me. Still. With not growing up like the others. Part of me close up, like he never went away. He’s – you know the smell of shit? Someone else’s shit smells horrible, don’t it? Someone else’s shit stinks. Not your baby’s, though. My babies’ shit never stank to me. It’s all right, you don’t mind it. You can scrape it off their bums or find it plastered all over the cot and you get on and clean it up. You don’t mind. But when they get bigger – If I go on the bog after Darren now the stink of him makes me heave. It does.

  Not Gary. He’s bigger but his shit’s still like my own, to me. I can breathe it in, it’s warm in my nose like my own.

  He’s mine. I’ve got him. What’s he got? He’s got me. He hasn’t got nothing else, for Christ’s sake. What’s he got? Who else ever give a toss for him? He’s got – he’s got those teachers, that school. But when he’s finished there they’ll say so what and get on with the new kids. He’s done for.

  Who loves him? Me. I made him and his little world, his clever things and his safe places, his little treats. I know what’s good for him. I know what he likes. I know he’s got to live – he’s got to live.

  He’s mine. There’s only me. He’s got nothing else. There’s nothing else for him, only me, I’ve got to keep him safe.

  I done it, right? For years, I done it. Kept them off – everyone laughing, calling him, teasing him, the other kids mucking him about. I kept him safe. I’m his Mum. I keep him safe from people – tormenting him. From hurt. From fear.

  So when – when –

  That’s what I do. I keep him safe.

  The following evening she was putting away the clean clothes in her bedroom, and Gary was washing up for her, when she heard the front door slam. Bill was back again. She heard him shout something at Gary. She opened her bedroom door and stood at the crack. The sound of the TV started suddenly, and she could hear the creak of Bill throwing himself into an armchair.

  ‘Where’s your Mum, thicko?’ she heard him shout. Gary did not reply. ‘Wanta see her get her knickers off again? D’ya like that, dumbo?’

  No reply. She heard Bill curse half-heartedly, as if exasperated, then change channels. The volume of the TV increased. She opened the door wider. She could see along the corridor, through the open kitchen door at the end Gary’s back – at the sink, washing up. He was standing completely still, his shoulders hunched, hands in the bowl. After she’d been watching a few minutes, and the voices on the telly had run on uninterrupted, he moved, and began carefully rubbing at a plate. Very slowly, and completely silently, like a woman in a trance, Leonie began to move along the corridor towards him. When she got to the threshold of the kitchen she didn’t pause, but her right hand stretched out, skimming the top of the table, catching up the bread knife. Her movements were those of a sleep-walker; around her the room seemed turned to slow motion, each movement, each action flowing slowly across minutes. Gary picked up a mug, swished it through the water, raised it slowly to his face and peered into it. Slowly, he turned it upside-down and watched the last drips fall from it; carefully he placed it in the rack. She was behind him. Some sixth sense made him half-turn his head, eyes staring with fear, and he came face to face with her. His terrified expression relaxed slowly into a full smile, and after they had smiled at one another in silence he gave a little nod and turned back to his dishes. She raised her left hand to his shoulder, slid the forearm round and across his neck, in a hug. He snuggled his chin against her arm, raising another mug for careful inspection as he did so. Leonie lifted the knife at arm’s length from her body, like a cellist about to play, and drew it across and in over his throat.

  As blade touched flesh, slow motion stopped. Gary bucked and tried to jerk backwards, and Leonie, supporting his skinny weight against her body, began to saw at his neck like a woman cutting fresh bread with a blunt knife. The small sharp teeth moved through the resistant cartilage, sticking twice but moved on by Leonie’s pumping elbow. On the right side before the left, blood began to ooze, then to spurt, from the boy’s neck into the washing-up bowl, on to Leonie’s arms, into her face.

  Sorry ? I should be glad. He’s safe now. Warm, dark, all folded in – just like he was a little baby in my belly, before all this started. He was safe then, and perfect – and he is now. I never hurt him. I saved him. I ask you – what sort of a mother could hurt her own little child?

  As Gary fell she crumpled with him, falling heavily, half on top of him. She pulled the knife out and slid it across the kitchen floor, away from her. Bill, who had been watching from the doorway since an odd sound interrupted his viewing, stepped quickly back. But Leonie did not see him. She crawled off Gary’s back, and round to his head. Kneeling before him, she raised his head on to her lap, and rhythmically smoothed his hair away from his face. Blood continued to flow from the wound on to her skirt and, soaking through it, to her thighs, but she did not seem to notice.

  Tues. 25 Feb

  I’ve been here nearl
y two weeks now. I’m better, it’s time to go. There has been no fresh snow for a few days, and during the daytime the sun shines. Gradually the thick white encrustations are reduced, the disappearance of snow seems a possibility. But every night it freezes hard, and the snow which was turning to water in daylight is preserved as glassy ice. In next day’s sunlight that ice begins to thaw, then at night it refreezes. The shapes of snow-covered objects change each day.

  Wed. 26

  I drove thirty miles or so yesterday, which was enough. I was exhausted when I arrived. I wonder now at that relentless energy which kept me going in the first week, how could I keep on driving. I am in a small village on a main road, surrounded by wide exposed fields. The minor roads are either blocked or threaten to become so. My room is in one of the village’s two pubs. They don’t get many tourists this time of year. This morning I went out and walked along the lane that crosses the main road. The sun was shining and I could almost feel its warmth on my face. Underfoot the black ice was covered in a thin slushy layer. The snow is dirty, by the edges of the road it’s filthy, and even in the fields it’s grey and grained. My shoes are not waterproof, or else I might have walked farther, enjoying the immediacy of sunshine, snow, sharp cold air.

  The fairy story I remember best is of red dancing shoes. A little girl wanted red shoes very badly, and finally she got some. They were magical, they danced and danced. At last the girl was tired and cried to the shoes, ‘Enough, please stop, please – dance no more!’

  But the shoes would not be still, they made her dance along lanes, across fields, through woods and ditches, up hills and over dales till her feet bled and she was dropping from exhaustion – and still they danced. In the end they danced her to the executioner’s cottage, and she begged him to chop off her dancing feet with his great axe. The hideous stumps of feet danced off in the wicked red shoes, and the little girl got crutches. That wasn’t enough, though; the shoes and feet still danced about in her way to plague her – her only escape was death. Her death was full of bliss, I remember, her heart burst with joy; that wicked girl who dared to want.

  My grandmother kept such books in the room where I slept when I stayed with her. They were in a tall glass-fronted cabinet. I could never think of it as a bookcase, it was the sort of furniture I expected to see china displayed in. The books were tall, bound in brown leather, with three ridges reminding me of knuckles, in their spines. They had marbled endpapers, which looked like the patterns oil makes in water. On the bottom shelf, Encyclopaedia, twelve volumes. On the top shelf, Birds of the World. On the middle shelf, Maps and Cautionary Tales. I read them secretly. I wasn’t allowed to open the cabinet. The books were old and valuable. The tales convinced me that every act has its price. The boy who told a lie was run over by a hackney carriage. The girl who spied through a keyhole was merely blinded. The greedy child was brought low with a lingering disease akin to starvation. The only safe course of action was to do nothing. The less you did, the safer you were.

  The Twins

  Write down about the twins.

  What must I say?

  Write the truth. Last May I gave birth to healthy unidentical twins; Penny 51b 2oz, Paul 51b exactly.

  I have been sitting staring at the wall, with my pen held above the paper, till my arm aches. What must I write?

  Tell about the twins.

  I have twin babies, who were born to me in the normal way, and came home with me from hospital after a week. They are my children.

  Go on.

  After they were born my life changed. I was unhappy. They cried a lot. I could not sleep. Gareth wasn’t there. Then Ruth and Vi.

  Now as I try to write those old hopeless tears are coursing down my face and I still don’t know why or who for. How can I find the source of my grief, how can it ever be repaired?

  How can I talk of them? I don’t know what words to use, what names to give things. The facts are simple but explain nothing to me.

  List the facts.

  I did not love them.

  I was a bad mother.

  I did not know how to look after them. They cried, they did not sleep. I could not make a routine. I couldn’t tell day from night.

  They were angry and colicky and I could not comfort them.

  They did not like me.

  These are the facts. I lived like a pig. I couldn’t do things. I didn’t take them out in the fresh air, I didn’t play with them, I didn’t wash their hair. I was no good.

  The facts are not the texture of that time. The texture is insubstantial, lacking all facts. The texture is that I know nothing. I am in bed, one of them is feeding, the boy has the right, the girl the left, the girl is greedier, the left is bigger. I know nothing. I cry. Time is grey and trailing, there are thin dusty grey veils of net curtain trailing all around my head so that whatever I look at it is in the way. Nothing is clear, nothing is real. These babies are not what I thought I would have. I was going to have Ruth again, Vi again. These babies hate me, they know I am no good. When they fall asleep I creep out of the room, my stomach is in a knot for fear of the slightest noise which might disturb them. I creep to the kitchen. I want to make some tea for the girls. I am shaking with hunger, I scoff some yoghurt and a pint of milk, I have to sit down. My body is heavy, every move I make is against a pull of gravity one hundred times stronger than it used to be. The weight of each hair on my head is terrible. I don’t know what is in the fridge, the cupboard. Other people have put food there. People come into my house, I don’t know who. I try to find something to cook quickly. I start to open a tin of tomatoes. My fingers are like water, they don’t have the strength to turn the key on the opener. Listen.

  One is crying. I must get it before it wakes the other. As I pick it up I am weeping in hopeless rage. Why won’t it sleep? I take it in the kitchen to feed, boy on the right. The tomatoes are open, onion chopped, but the pepper hasn’t been sliced. I can’t move, I watch the clock ticking, the boy feeds. The washing must go on, the drier, the cooking, I must feed the other one, I must change them, my back is breaking my body is heavy. I’ve done it wrong. I stink, I must have a bath, I must bath them, I must change the sheets, I must play with them, I must go to the toilet, I must be dressed when the girls come home from school.

  I can do nothing. The tasks pile up in mountains around me. At my first move to shift one pebble of one mountain that blocks my way, a baby starts to cry. They have stopped me in my life, in time, like a cartoon character who’s had a bucket of sticky toffee poured over her. I try to move and the glutinous sticky stuff pulls my hand or foot back again. I am stuck like a fly on paper.

  I started to go away before. Once I put all my clothes on, in the bathroom, shaking and sweating. I was sweating terribly. I crept to the front door. As my hand touched the latch one started to cry. I wanted to open the door. I was trying to open the door and go out while they were sleeping. The other woke up, they both began to scream. What must I do? Is this my life? I sit on the floor by the door, I cannot stop crying.

  Go back, get them up, they are both screaming. I can’t feed them together, I can’t do it right. The health visitor with her little book and diagrams of feeding positions.

  ‘You’ll be feeding all night,’ says she, ‘unless you learn to feed them simultaneously.’ They are too big, their heads are too heavy. I can’t do it. They must feed one at a time, it’s all I can do. They might as well feed all night. I don’t sleep. Now they are both awake, that’s the worst thing. While the girl feeds the boy screams. I go into the lounge with her and shut the door but I can still hear him, it makes me frantic. His breast starts to leak.

  I don’t know what happened. All the days and nights ran into a blur, I did not know what was happening, the girls came and went and I tried to keep a grip but my fingers slipped all the time I kept falling. They helped, they brought more people to help. They shopped, they cooked, there was a cleaning lady. Then a doctor – one, two, I don’t know. I knew what to do, I’ve done it.
I know how to look after babies.

  He told me to eat and sleep. At night I lay waiting for the next one to wake up, crying in rage because I wasn’t asleep. It was no good, I didn’t know how to do it. I pretended I did but I didn’t. Did I ever look after Ruth and Vi? Was it me? I made it up, none of it happened like that, there were no days of measured contentment. I’m a liar. I write lies.

  I see the doctor’s big fat face, he’s standing over the bed with his coat on, rushing off to an emergency, wasting time with me. He says I’m silly, I’m ill. Take the tablets. Start to take care of yourself. You must take the tablets, you must wean these babies, you haven’t the energy to feed them. Have you heard of post-natal depression? The tablets will go through into your milk. You must wean them or you could make your babies ill. Take the tablets, wean the babies, get some sleep. You’ll be better in a month if you do as I say.

  Vi is there. She says don’t cry. She says it will get better, honestly Mum. You must do what he says now. Please. You’ll get better. It’ll be all right, see?

  At night which is so terribly long while I sit in the dark with the boy on the right or the girl on the left, listening to the house creaking around me, and cars in the night streets outside, I stop crying. I must stop feeding them. I am no good to them. Their crying drives me mad, I only want them to sleep. I don’t want to hurt them, but I want them to sleep. I want them to leave me alone.

  Do what the man says, then. Take the tablets, sleep, let them leave you alone. Let them cry at the bottle, instead of you.

  Then what? This baby is sucking at my breast. While it sucks, it is quiet. I give it food. I am their food. Nothing else. No good to Ruth or Vi. No good to them, even, but as food. I am their food.

  And if I can’t even give them that – if I can’t even feed them – I am no good at all.

  All right. I know what to do. But while they want it, at least I can provide milk. If I can’t do anything else for them, at least I can do that.