The car was losing speed now, still creeping backwards, but beginning to jib and shudder as the road curved up behind it in a second hill. The wheels had lost their grip, were sliding out of control again.
‘Get out!’ Lyn ordered. ‘We need some grit for the wheels. Damn—I should have brought a shovel.’ He should have brought a lot of things—food, rugs, booze, a proper tool-kit. Edward had suggested taking the whisky with them, packing up a picnic of the bread and cheese, making sure they were well prepared. A proper little Baden-Powell. His own mind had been elsewhere.
‘You get in the car,’ he had said. ‘I’ll bring all the gear.’ He had turned back to the house, filched one last look at it, found himself fighting off the tears. Bloody fool—blubbing over a pile of stones he had spent thirty years trying to get shot of. He’d been fumbling for a handkerchief instead of searching for a shovel, had forgotten food and drink. Or was it just forgetting? It was almost as if he were ill-prepared on purpose, making things as difficult for Edward as they could be—a sort of trial by ordeal in which the alien must fight for his house and win, prove himself against every hitch and hazard.
There was a pile of grit swelling on the roadside, like an abcess frozen hard beneath its bandaging of snow. Lyn kicked at it with his boot, hacked and rammed with the crank-handle, using the whole force of his body. Even so, he dislodged only a few handfuls which he carried like diamonds to the car and scattered round the wheels. He clambered into the driving seat, rivulets of melting snow trickling down his neck from his soaked and straggly hair. His hands were so numb, they felt large and clumsy like the paws of some extinct and cumbersome animal.
He slipped the handbrake off and put the car in gear, made another run at the hill. So long as they moved at all, Lyn felt power. He was Force, Movement, Plan, while Edward was only ballast slumped scared and inert beside him. The last two hours of driving had needed all his skills—blind corners, treacherous surfaces, twisting dipping roads. Edward would have been defeated long ago. He was defeated now himself. The wheels were slipping again, the car sliding out of control. He came to a stop only a few yards past his previous resting-place, trapped between a hill in front and a hill behind. There was nothing he could do now but switch the engine off and wait for daylight or the snow to stop. He could hardly see at all. Snowflakes were slamming at the windows, paralysing the flailing windscreen wipers. He leaned forward, cut the ignition. Silence flooded over them—choking, menacing. Neither man disturbed it. Only the wind made rude and spiteful conversation, whining round the car.
‘Surely we ought to go and get some help?’ Edward muttered, at last. His voice sounded scared and puny, as if the snow had muffled it.
‘Where from, for God’s sake?’
‘There must be a house nearby. Or a farm, or …’
‘It’s crazy to get out. With snow like this, you can lose all sense of direction. Landmarks simply disappear. Only last year, a shepherd died. He was walking home from Alwinton—knew every inch of the land—but still managed to stray off the road. They found him a week later, buried in a snow-drift.’ Lyn switched his lights off. Darkness closed around them, as if in mourning for the buried shepherd. He could feel Edward’s fear stretching out towards him like a clammy hand.
‘Can’t we have a bit of light?’
Lyn switched on just the sidelights, to save the battery. Their beam was so weak, it hardly showed at all. All he could see was blurred and spinning snowflakes whirling into nothingness.
‘It’s damn hard on the shepherds. Weather like this makes their job a nightmare. I’ve seen them digging sheep out of ten or twelve feet of snow. The poor crazed creatures are so wild with hunger, sometimes, they tear at their own wool to try and lick the grease from it. When they’re rescued, they look as if they’re half bald, with bare patches on their sides—if they’re still alive at all.’
Edward was still fidgeting. ‘We can’t just sit here. We’re stuck in a dip with the wind blowing straight towards us. The car could be covered after several hours. We’ve nothing to eat or drink, nothing to …’
‘It’s worse outside,’ said Lyn. Snow was clinging to the windows, blinding them like shutters. Edward slapped at them with his gloves. Was he claustrophobic, afraid of being coffined in snow? One stranded night was nothing. He and Hester had been snowed up for weeks, no car, no help, no neighbour for five miles. That was claustrophobic. Hemmed in by his mother, her face pale at every window, her shadow black at every door. Winters half a year long, when Edward would be basking in the sunshine, deepening his tan from October through to March.
‘You said Elsdon wasn’t far off. Couldn’t we get out and walk there? Get some help or something? Put up for the night?’
‘Out of the question. It’s at least three miles away. The only thing I could do is try and reach Eastbrook Farm. That’s only half a mile or so. The farmer there’s related to the Bertrams and quite a decent chap. I ought to see the house lights if I strike straight across these moors. It’s madness to try in these conditions, but …’ Lyn shrugged. No more crazy than risking his neck on the roads.
‘Do you want me to … er … come with you?’
‘No, you stay put.’ Edward had property to live for, two houses to tie him down, deeds to sign, repairs to put in hand, lawsuits to fight and win. Edward couldn’t perish.
‘You won’t be … too long, then will you?’
Fatuous question. How could he not be long, when every step was a fight against the elements?
‘No, I shouldn’t think so.’
‘Will you be … all right?’
‘Of course.’ He almost welcomed acting irresponsibly, doing something reckless. It stopped him thinking, counting up his losses.
‘Well, take my gloves, at least.’
Lyn slipped them on. They were far too large for him, turned his hands into another man’s—long-fingered and broad-palmed. He felt a child again, boating about in his father’s size eleven Wellingtons, boots cold and dead as Thomas was himself. Edward’s gloves were chill against his fingers, the suede clammy from the snow. They wouldn’t keep him warm, but they were Edward’s talisman, his feeble contribution to their rescue.
‘Won’t be long,’ he fibbed again. Time meant nothing, anyway. He had the rest of his life to waste, or chuck away. He longed to plunge into the snow and be snuffed out like a candle. He realised suddenly that life and death were equal for him now. The boundaries between them had been blurred like those between road and moorland, snow and sky. Edward had no choice. Edward had to survive as householder and heir, whereas he himself had renounced all possessions like the monk Llewelyn, cut all ties.
He stepped into the snowstorm. Cold clawed at his face, the wind rushed for all his weak spots—up wrists and trouser-legs, down neck and into ears. He turned his collar up, used his hands like a blind man, feeling for the hedge, tap-tapping along it until he reached a gate. If it was reckless to get out at all, then it was still more madcap to step off the road and strike across a moorland, when he had neither torch nor compass. Everything looked different in the snow, and this was territory he hardly knew. He turned to look back at the car, its yellow lights still shining faint behind him. It looked absurdly small and stupid, broken-backed and stranded. The next time he looked, even the lights had been swallowed up in darkness. He was alone now with the night.
Every thought, every muscle, was centred on the yard of snow in front
of him, feeling for traps beneath it—bog, boulders, sudden mounds or dips. He had to battle against the wind, keep trudging on, however harsh the weather. Cold and Dark were giant figures striding on either side of him, towering over the landscape. He groped towards what he hoped was east. The snow cast a ghostly glow around him, fudging forms and outlines. Black and white had fused in treacherous grey. He stared towards the dead line of the horizon. There were no welcoming lights, no blur of a friendly house. The farm he remembered had perhaps struggled to its feet and lumbered away like a frightened
beast at his approach.
The snow was so deep now, he could hardly free his feet. He suddenly realised he was stepping into the hollows of his own earlier footprints, only half concealed by freshly fallen snow. He must have walked in a circle, come back to where he started. It was madness to go on. He had got nowhere at all, so far, and Edward would be panicking. Best that they stayed together this one last night, before they parted for ever in the morning.
He flailed round, struck out for what he remembered as the track back to the road, tried to follow his footprints which were swiftly disappearing. The soft sheen from the snow showed him only wastes of more snow. Supposing he were lost—never found the road? Every time he raised his head, freezing flakes smote against his eyes, fell cold and stinging on his lips. The simplest action such as putting one foot in front of the other, or trying to stand straight against the wind, had become feats of endurance. Little point in shouting out for help. Edward was sitting deaf behind the iced and blinded windows of the car, every human creature safe indoors. It must be long past supper time—cold turkey and hot punch, sherry trifles, jellies. He and Hester had eaten bread and milk on Christmas night. The chicken carcass had to last all week for soups and stew-ups. He would have welcomed bread and milk now, snatched at a dry crust. The mouthful or two of ham he had forced down at lunchtime was only a grumble in his gut.
He groped a few steps forward. The road they had been on ran south and east. He must will himself that way, find the car again. He stumbled into a ditch and out of it. Didn’t remember a ditch. He stopped—heard a cry shatter the darkness like a stone thrown in a pool. A rabbit caught by a fox, perhaps. Somewhere there were creatures as cold and hungry as he was—voles, badgers, birds huddled in the bare and shivering trees, all waiting for God’s mercy and a thaw
A black shape turned into a bush, tore and scratched his hands. How could he have lost his bearings in so short a time? The countryside looked alien as if he had wandered off the map and strayed into a foreign land.
He tried to walk faster—tripped and fell spreadeagled on the ground. His body felt damp and heavy like a boulder, a clumsy hulk with neither brain nor feeling. If he left it where it was, it would be buried with the stones and bushes around it. He let himself sink back, closed his eyes. His earlier elation had totally disappeared, swamped in sheer exhaustion. No point struggling any longer. He had learnt long ago you couldn’t win against the elements—not up here—couldn’t change the climate, switch the seasons. The whole scheme of things was merciless. Foxes pounced on rabbits, crows pecked out the eyes of new-born lambs, man shot roe-deer, God killed man. Everything ground you down—weather, nature, time. Best to submit. If he died, who cared?
He huddled his coat around him, touched the damp wool of his sweater. Jennifer had knitted that—knitted all his jerseys. It was all he had left of her. Her other possessions would be in that squalid Southwark bedsit which he had never dared to visit—the tiny china animals which she had collected since her childhood, her fluffy Angora jumpers which moulted in the wash and left little shreds of her on his darker pants and shirts. His own sweater was baggy now, stained with axle grease. He remembered it growing from her needles like a child, swelling on her lap. She had chosen the wool to match his eyes, scoured twenty shops before she got it right. She had tried it out against her, held it to her chest to measure it. Now it lay against his own chest. He slumped back, closed his eyes.
He had driven her away, lost her through his own fault, rejected her, upset her, made a mess of everything. He was too numb now to battle on, too fagged to force himself. Best simply to give up, accept that he was lost in every sense. He would perish in the cold and his wife wouldn’t even know.
He let the snow slam down on his face, cover him like a shroud, heard the tiny cry of the rabbit again, gasping through the night. Other creatures were dying—preyed upon or frozen—sheep plunging into drifts, deer collapsing where they stood. He groped to his feet and listened. Was it just a rabbit? It sounded more like a human cry, muffled and still distant. Yes, there it was again. He wasn’t lost. Someone was out there, another human being. He lurched towards the voice, dizzy with relief. He suddenly knew he didn’t want to die.
‘Haloooo …,’ the voice was shouting. ‘Where a-aa-are you?’
It was Edward’s voice, Edward who was approaching him—gloveless, witless Edward, striding out in the snow, risking his neck to come and find his enemy in a completely unknown countryside.
‘Over here!’ Lyn yelled. Elation made him clumsy. He tripped on a hidden root, measured his length in the snow again, blacked out for a second.
When he opened his eyes, Edward was standing over him, hauling him up, his broad comforting bulk steadying him on his feet. ‘L … Lyn, you’re s … safe. Thank God!’
Lyn felt his face crushed against wet cashmere, his chest pinioned in two arms. Edward was embracing him, had used his Christian name for the first time since they’d met.
‘God! Lyn, I was frightened. I thought you might b … be …’ The voice stuttered, petered out. Lyn drew away a little. Was Edward frightened for himself, scared to be left alone to starve or perish, or genuinely worried about his only blood relation’s life and safety? He sensed the second, longed to thank his rescuer, return his hug.
Instead, he stood rigid and embarrassed. ‘It’s OK. I was quite all right, in fact. Just … er … having a bit of a breather.’
‘You were gone an hour, you know. I was imagining the worst.’ Edward took his arm and started walking very gingerly, feeling every step.
‘Yes … Well—everything takes longer in this weather.’ Lyn stumbled along beside him. ‘I couldn’t find the farm, in any case. The snow masks all the landmarks. We ought to get back in the car and stay there.’ He assumed Edward knew where the road was, let him act as leader. He himself seemed to have lost his strength as well as his sense of direction. His coat was sopping wet, flapping against his trousers. He was astonished to see the car lights shining like a benediction after only a few yards. So it had been that close, after all! He spurted forward, ran towards the hedge.
‘Thank God for my old banger! There’s nothing we can do now except sit tight until the snow plough comes and digs us out in the morning.’
‘But will it come on Boxing Day?’ Edward had caught up with him.
‘If we’re lucky. It depends how bad the weather gets. It’ll come in an emergency, even on Bank Holidays. Thank God we got this far, though. It’s only the major roads they bother with.’
‘You call this major?’ Edward smiled for the first time since they had left the house. They stumbled to the gate together. Lyn could see more clearly now. The side-lights blazed a welcome. The car was sanctuary and shelter—if not warm, at least dry and protected from the wind.
Edward fumbled for the door handle. ‘Wouldn’t it be better if we both got in the back? We can sit closer then and build up a bit of body heat.’
Lyn hesitated. ‘Body heat’ sounded somehow far too intimate. And yet it was common sense, survival. Animals huddled together for warmth, curled up side by side.
‘OK. Let’s just push the car on the verge, though. I’d prefer to turn the lights off and we don’t want a collision if other cars can’t see us.’
‘D’you think there will be other cars?’
Lyn could hear the tiny thread of hope in Edward’s voice. He was forced to snap it. ‘I doubt it—in this weather and on Christmas night. I suppose there might be the odd Land Rover, but anyone with his head screwed on would stay indoors.’
He and Edward heaved the car across the road and up on the verge, the opposite side from the ditch, then clambered wet and panting into the back, Edward’s bulky form swamping all the seat space. Lyn tried to squeeze himself into the corner. His coat was not only drenched, but filthy. He had used it as a ground-sheet during weeks of living rough, wiped oil and grease and blood on it, whereas Edward’s cashmere was still reasonably clean and elegant. The whole car was dirty, E
dward’s feet paddling in torn newspapers and oily cleaning rags. It was Jennifer who kept things clean and tidy. Yet Edward was taking charge now, had switched from passenger to boss. ‘My coat’s drier than yours. Why not take yours off and use mine as a sort of … rug for both of us? Come on—otherwise you’ll get a chill.’
Lyn grinned—another Jennifer. The two men struggled out of their coats. Lyn slung his on the seat in front, while Edward draped his damp black cashmere over both their laps. Lyn realised suddenly that both of them were wearing sweaters knitted by Jennifer—one slatey-blue, one brown. Edward had taken up his offer back in the house, slipped on his spare jersey underneath his jacket. It made a bond between them. Lyn relaxed a little. It was very cramped—but cosy. Their breath was steaming up the windows, their bodies overlapping. He was reminded of the ox and ass crowding the Bethlehem stable. If Edward was the patient lumbering ox, then he must be the …
‘I’m sorry Christmas Day turned out like this,’ he said.
‘Hardly your fault, Lyn.’ It still sounded strange to hear Edward use his name. He gave the Lyn great dignity, as if Llewelyn himself was trumpeting through the letters in a blaze of glory.
‘The snow rarely starts this early. White Christmases are rare, in fact, even this far north. January’s the worst month. I remember one year we didn’t see a blade of grass from New Year to the end of April—and hardly another living soul. It was rather like being besieged.’
‘Yes, this is … battle country, so I’m told.’
Lyn nodded. ‘More castles than any other county in the British Isles.’
‘Even Wales?’
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