The Devil in the Snow

by Sarah Armstrong

  Thea said, ‘Let’s have a look.’

  ‘It’s locked.’ Shona led her to the door.

  Thea tested the handle. Locked, as usual. Half-heartedly, she banged her hip against the panels but they didn’t shift. They were those ‘quality Edwardian doors’ Maynard had been so proud of when they moved in.

  ‘Have you lost the key?’ Thea said as they went back to the table.

  ‘Kind of.’ Shona dipped a tortilla chip in the humus. ‘When Maynard left, he must have accidentally locked me out, like he accidentally locked me out for the previous five years.’

  ‘When Jude was born?’

  Shona nodded.

  ‘OK, I’m going to have a think. Tell me about this legal thing that happened. I keep hearing half-stories about it but I don’t understand what went on.’

  ‘People are talking about it?’

  ‘Shona, if people are talking about you they’re thinking about Cerys. Just go with it.’

  ‘I worked at the university for this department called the Scrutiny Mission. It was a cold-case review thing, something which gets a lot of press. The university asked me to do an interview about our work, about miscarriages of justice, because there was a grant review coming up and they thought it would help. Stupidly, as it turns out.’

  Thea nodded.

  ‘So I thought we were chatting and I was asked about this drug-smuggling case and I said that I thought their defence had moral weight. That’s not quite what got printed because their defence was the opium wars. We didn’t get the grant and we lost other funding. The Mission ended up being disbanded in a reorganisation of the department. Jobs were lost, research money was removed.’

  Thea nodded. ‘Unfortunate.’

  ‘Sometimes I feel cursed, Thea. Nothing ever works out the way it should.’

  Thea shook her head. ‘Welcome to the world. Everyone feels that.’

  ‘No, they don’t. And then I’m supposed to go and see my mother next week,’ said Shona. ‘I’ve made and cancelled three appointments.’

  ‘Why do you have to make an appointment?’

  ‘It feels like one.’

  ‘But it’s hardly a curse.’

  ‘I have to ask her if she murdered my father.’

  ‘Oh. That’s more like an appointment, yes.’

  Shona laughed at Thea’s serious reply. ‘Are you ever surprised by anything?’

  Thea dipped another breadstick into the guacamole, while putting on an expression of intense thoughtfulness. ‘I’m sure if I thought hard enough there must be something that would do it.’ Thea ate the whole breadstick before she spoke again. ‘Are you really OK? I know you’re making light of it, but I can do serious if you need serious.’

  ‘I’m not OK. Everything’s crumbling. I have no idea what will happen next.’

  Thea pushed herself up from the chair and hugged Shona. Shona felt awkward, her shoulders stiff, until she realised it was the first time since Rob that anyone, anyone adult, had held her. Thea moved away.

  ‘Time for a cup of tea?’

  Shona nodded. She had nothing to say that would be more useful although her head was full of things she wanted to say, had no-one else to say them to. Her mother had tried to kill her father. Maybe she had brought on his death after his silence and stillness. Shona herself, it turned, out was nothing special at all, just quite academic and particularly annoying when it came to right and wrong. And Maynard, who she’d married knowing that he was a deceitful and arrogant person, had turned out to be deceitful and arrogant. She had herself to blame for that, for believing that she could change him, as she thought she’d changed her father. She had no effect on people around her other than the change they wanted for themselves.

  When she felt Thea’s hand on her shoulder, she realised she’d been crying again.

  ‘We’ve got twenty minutes until the boys need collecting,’ said Thea. ‘I’m not going to offer to pick them up because you need the fresh air, quite frankly. That’s the end of serious for today, but I can be back tomorrow.’ She hesitated. ‘Well, just one more bit of serious. You need to feel like this house is your house. Get a locksmith to change the locks. Start taking control and stop just reacting to other people. Time to drink up.’

  Shona nodded and gasped as Thea drank the tea in one go. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

  ‘Don’t look so freaked out. I put some cold water in it.’ She jangled the keys in her pocket. ‘And yours. Hurry up, coat on, please.’

  ‘There’s loads of time.’

  ‘There’s loads of time if we want to be late, but not much time if we want to be early. It’s all a matter of perspective, smarty-pants.’

  They walked slowly across the field. Shona could feel the soles of her socks becoming sodden. She needed new shoes.

  ‘So, what needs to happen is that you need to break in,’ Thea said.

  ‘To where?’

  ‘The front room. I wouldn’t advise going through the wall. It’s probably a supporting one. But the door, they’re designed to move.’

  ‘Just bash it in? I’ve tried forcing it. It’s pretty solid.’

  ‘If you don’t want to damage it or the surround, just get the locksmith to do it.’

  Shona stopped and stared at Thea.

  ‘But that’s so obvious.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean that it’s not the right answer.’

  11

  When the door closed, the stinging smell of burnt hair grew stronger. Shona cleared her throat again but it still felt tight.

  ‘Shall I put the kettle on?’ her mother asked.

  ‘If you like.’

  Greta was looking dishevelled, a just-got-up-air clinging to her. Clearly surprised by this visit even though it had been arranged, not her birthday and not Boxing Day, she must have thought Shona would cancel again. Shona could see her watching from the corner of her eye as she went into the kitchen and filled the kettle.

  ‘Is everything all right?’

  Shona shifted her feet. ‘No, not really.’ She went into the front room and moved a half-formed pile of wool from one end of the sofa and put it on a pile of books at the other. She saw the title on top, Exploring Leys, and didn’t want to know what else her mother was reading. She took her coat off and dropped it over the arm of the sofa, then stared out of the window until her mother came in and handed her a mug of black tea.

  ‘No milk, I forgot to get any.’

  ‘Right,’ said Shona. ‘Do you want me to?’

  ‘Not on my account.’

  Greta sat down carefully in the armchair and shifted more books on the coffee table to make room for her mug. ‘It’s good to see you. And it’s not even my birthday.’ She raised her eyebrows. Shona sat on the sofa and looked around the room, looking for changes that weren’t there, and her mother picked up a section of knitting, unravelled the wool holding the needles together and began clicking. Shona watched her, over, click, through, as the ball appeared to undo itself. It never quite fell from her side.

  ‘Why does it smell strange in here? Did you burn something?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  Over, click, through.

  There were few noises: the occasional car, the sound of the TV next door smudged through the wall, a clunk from the clock as it turned the hour. Her mother had turned off the chime but it still tried to mark the change.

  Greta paused her knitting. ‘What have you been up to?’

  Shona took a breath. ‘After I spoke to you about Cerys, Sean phoned me.’

  Greta nodded. ‘Is he well?’

  ‘I think so. He said to say hello.’ Shona looked away, across the room. ‘We didn’t have much to say.’

  ‘As usual.’

  ‘We don’t have many nice memories to talk about.’

  They looked at each other, both avoiding looking at the space that had held the armchair. Now it formed a gap in the circle around the fireplace. The emptiness of the place where the chair had been that ha
d held the man that had been.

  Greta cleared her throat. ‘Is there anything I can do? Are you putting up posters and things like that?’

  ‘No, I put some leaflets around, hoping she’d hear from a friend and get in touch. Her friends, if they know where she is, wouldn’t tell me. Whatever she’s been saying, I don’t think I come out of it well.’ Shona realised that what she was saying about her daughter, her mother could have said about her. As a child, a teenager and an adult, Shona couldn’t remember saying a single good, or even neutral, thing about her. She looked at her mother, saw the stiffness of her pose and the eager way she looked for answers from Shona. She was desperate for Shona to like her. Shona hoped that she wouldn’t be treated like this: two grudging visits a year and a total lack of interest in Cerys’ eyes.

  ‘It will all turn out for the best, Shona.’ No matter what her mother said, Shona always ended up wishing she hadn’t come. And now, here, trying to see some silent vengeful goddess where her mother sat, she found the whole idea suddenly ridiculous. Why had she ever believed Sean? ‘Did you ever run my father over?’

  Her mother’s face fell and Shona started to laugh in breathless bursts.

  ‘That’s what he said, ages ago. He said you just got in the work’s van and ran him down!’

  Greta wasn’t laughing. She looked slowly from Shona to the door and back again.

  ‘You didn’t tell him that, did you?’ Shona wiped her eyes. ‘He believes it, you know.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about him today. You’re still not ready.’

  Shona put her tea down by her feet and leaned forward. ‘Is this to do with that stupid hoof print thing?’

  Greta clasped her hands in her lap and looked straight back at Shona. Shona knew that look of dumb insolence. She used to practice it in the mirror to see if she could do it as well. Silence was the most powerful tool her mother had ever had and had kept them distant when they should have united against the monster downstairs.

  Shona said, ‘Right, don’t talk to me then. But I know that you would never have had the guts to do it. All you ever did was watch and I was the one who did something about it. You can’t stand that, can you?’

  Her mother stayed perfectly still.

  ‘So I think you’re cruel for saying that to Sean and I think it’s an extension of this devil story too. You chose a shitty husband, but, no, it wouldn’t be your fault, would it? The devil made you, like he personally intervened to ruin your mum’s life and your gran’s life, and so on and so forth. You couldn’t take responsibility for your mistakes and now you’re taking the credit for something you could never have done. You need to tell Sean the truth. You’re pathetic.’ Shona stood up. ‘He thinks I’m a liar, but I remember what happened. You must have told him that to make up for doing nothing all that time. You just don’t have the capacity to care about anyone. Just demons and ley lines and dowsing and whatever other stupid distraction you can pick up along the way.’

  Shona picked up her coat and walked away.

  ‘I didn’t tell him,’ Greta said quietly.

  Shona stopped and turned round.

  ‘Sean had to help me. I couldn’t get him inside.’

  ‘You really did do it? You can’t have.’

  Greta closed her eyes. ‘It wasn’t you.’

  Shona blinked. ‘Why would you let me believe it for all those years?’

  ‘It made you, Shona. You were nothing before you believed that you had the power to change people. It was the only bit of power you ever had over his memory.’

  ‘I was nothing?’ Shona walked back to stand in front of her. ‘You bitch. I was six. I built my whole life on something I made up when I was six. Because you let me. I would have found something else, I would have been all right. But just imagine how stupid and empty I feel now. The choices I made were because I believed I could change people. One child dead, one child gone, a husband I hate and a crazy mother who wants me to believe that the devil is after her and, when she’s gone, will be after me too. It’s all I had left, that if I tried hard enough I could make a change.’

  Greta kept her eyes closed and her hands still.

  ‘Nothing here is going to help me, is it? If it’s true, then my life may as well be over.’

  Greta’s voice was quiet but steady. ‘It’s not over. It may not be easy but it isn’t over.’

  Shona stood and walked to the door.

  ‘See you later,’ said Greta.

  Shona didn’t leave straight away. If she wasn’t ever going to come back them, she wanted to see her bedroom one last time. She stumbled on the landing, thinking that there was still one step to go, and looked down in surprise. Her feet were solidly placed, but she felt unstable somehow. Her bedroom door was the first, the box room for the second child, so small that the door slid on a runner to save a little space. Her brother had been given the larger second bedroom next to their parents’, but he’d asked her a few times if they could swap. She never asked what he could hear through the thin, papered walls.

  She gripped the key-shaped catch and pulled the door along the wall. It stuck before it was fully opened. The bed was still made, headboard against the window. She lay down and looked backwards at the sky. It could have been the same sky she had seen on her last morning here, bright and cloudless. The streetlight outside had meant she could read for as long as she liked without alerting anyone with a strip under her door. She had gloated, she shivered to remember, over the silent husk of her father. And it was no victory after all.

  She turned her head to one side to see the books she had left behind. Periods of her life in piles and marked with tickets or strips of notebook paper. Once she’d settled on law she had forgotten these other thoughts. She sat up and then lowered herself to the floor. There were books on symbols and magic, from when she’d believed that that might be how she had defeated the monster. There were earlier books on religion from when she’d decided that she might be a saint in training, that it was the power of a fair and just God that had aided her.

  She picked up a thin local book on the long-lost Maria shrines of Suffolk that Jimmy had posted for her birthday, or got someone else to post. Her mother must have told him she was interested. He had taken all of the religious paintings from his mother’s house when she died but Shona had never seen him as a religious person. Maybe she should give the book to Mariana, but then she would have to tell her where she’d got it. She put it back. There were no novels, just early feminist writings and socialist discussions of moral government. Everything that concerned the law had moved out with her in one suitcase and a backpack. And she had nothing to show for it. No career, just a lapsed financial dependency on a husband who she would happily slaughter in his sleep. Her marriage had been no happier or healthier than her mother’s, just two people waiting to see how far the other could be pushed.

  The books, the cutesy ornaments, the cassettes could all stay. She checked the runner to see what was jamming the door, but couldn’t see anything. Greta was waiting at the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘I did it to save you from what Sean went through.’

  ‘What, he wasn’t worth saving?’

  ‘I did things wrong, like you have.’ Greta folded her hands together. ‘Can I see Jude sometime?’

  ‘Jude really doesn’t need to see you. Jimmy would like to though. He’s out any day now.’

  Greta opened her mouth to reply, and then changed her mind. She opened the door for Shona, and Shona felt the ghost of a hand on her arm as she left.

  ‘You do have people who care about you, Shona. Don’t let them leave without telling them that you care too.’

  Shona stopped but her mother had already closed the door. Was she talking about Kallu? She almost knocked to ask and then turned away. She knew what would happen once she’d got on her bike and was out of sight. Her mother would get the salt from the box by the front door and cover the footprints so the next set were visible.

  Shona lingered o
n the driveway, looking at the garage behind her mother’s house. Everything that Meghan ever touched was still in there, quietly waiting. When she was rid of Maynard, she could finally clear it out and take it back home.

  There were two letters from the bank on the mat when she got back with Jude, with a solicitor’s letter and one addressed to Maynard from an estate agent.

  ‘Go up and get changed while I make dinner.’

  ‘Do I have to? Can’t I watch TV?’

  ‘Look at your trousers, Jude. I need to get the washing machine on or they won’t be dry.’

  Jude looked at his muddied knees, kicked his shoes into the middle of the hall and slid his trousers off. ‘Now?’

  ‘Go and get changed.’ Shona bent down to pick up the trousers. ‘See if—’

  She’d forgotten again that Cerys wasn’t there. Jude looked at her.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Just clean trousers.’

  There was a knock on the door. She turned to open it.

  ‘Are you busy?’ asked Mariana.

  ‘You can come in but I have to make dinner.’

  Shona put Jude’s shoes next to Cerys’ under the coat rack and took the post to the kitchen. Mariana sat down and took her coat off, hanging it on the back of the chair behind her. She could wait. The back door unlocked and kettle on, Shona opened the post with her finger before deciding which one to read first. The estate agent confirmed the contract, the asking price and included photos to use in the advert. The solicitor confirmed divorce proceedings and asked for the details of her solicitor. The bank statement showed that his payments to her had stopped in October. It wasn’t surprising. Everything else had stopped in October. Shona made the coffee and sat down.

  ‘So,’ she said. ‘I guess you’re here to give me another lecture about Kallu?’

  Mariana sipped her coffee. ‘I just want us to be friends again.’

  ‘We are friends.’

  The back door opened and Kallu walked in. Shona waved at him and carried on.

  ‘I just need a little space to make my own choices.’