Weathering

by Lucy Wood

  She went back in and had another look at the ring while Frank fed Ada.

  ‘We’ve run out of milk,’ Frank said, coming in. ‘Normal milk I mean. I’m going to go and get some from the shop.’ He put Ada down next to Pearl. A sudden energy to the way he moved: he tucked Ada’s blanket elaborately, kept raking his hand through his hair, he came up and stood very close to Pearl and touched the tips of his fingers against her cheekbone. His fingers were very cold. His breath fast and shallow. He turned to look at her again from the door, then went out and got in the car. The engine started up then stopped. Started, coughed, then stopped again. Nothing for ten long minutes. Then Frank came back in. He hadn’t put a coat on. ‘I need to get milk,’ he said. His voice was tight. He tapped against the door with his fist.

  ‘You finish this,’ Pearl said. ‘I’ve softened the metal and opened it up wider. There’s not much left to do.’ She touched Ada’s soft arm. She was sleeping again. ‘I’ll go and get the milk.’

  ‘How will you?’ Frank asked.

  Pearl looked out of the window. ‘I’ll have to walk,’ she told him. She pulled on her boots and the long brown coat that Frank had bought her. Far too expensive. And not her style at all. Too practical, too waterproof, but it was warm, something in the seams that kept the wind out. ‘I’m going now,’ she called.

  Frank didn’t answer.

  ‘I’m going now.’ Determined he would know how annoying it was, having to walk all the way to the shop. She stood on the top step of the study. ‘If I twist my ankle again and it gets dark you’ll have to come out and look for me.’

  And that’s when it happened. Frank stood up, took a pair of pliers from his toolbox and hurled them at the window. The glass cracked outwards, then seemed to hold for a moment before shattering and falling onto the carpet. The room was very quiet. They both stood there and waited for Ada to howl, but she didn’t wake up.

  Drizzle rushed into the room. The sound of the river was even louder now, drumming away at the bottom of the field. Frank went over to the window and picked up a piece of the glass.

  ‘I’m going now,’ Pearl said.

  It took her nearly three hours to walk to the shop and back. At first, her legs ached and her knees cracked. Her chest was tight and heavy. The raw air made it difficult to breathe. But, after a while, she started getting used to it. And felt better – the cold air felt good in her lungs, her legs got into a steady stride, her thoughts steadying. Her heart stopped racing and beat firmly and in time with each step.

  When she opened the front door, the house was quiet. Ada was still asleep in the kitchen and Frank had tucked another blanket around her.

  She called out to Frank but he didn’t answer. She knew immediately that he wasn’t there but she went round the house checking anyway. Up the stairs, into every room. She put the milk away in the fridge and saw that there were two bottles in there already. She went back outside and walked around the yard. The car was still there. There were no bags missing, no other clothes except his good pair of boots. His wallet had gone but the bank book was still there, the dwindling figure of their savings stamped at the front. The ring was on the desk, fixed now and polished up to a gold shine. And he had put a piece of board over the broken window. Not a rushed job either – he had cut and fitted it neatly so that it would hold. It seemed like a kind thing to do. And by the way he had done it, she knew that he wasn’t coming back.

  Although she waited. When Ada woke up she sat with her by the fire and waited. All night, holding Ada in her arms as she grizzled and drifted in and out of sleep. Listening for Frank’s footsteps coming up the steps by the door, listening for his cough, his voice. But he didn’t come back.

  She made up stories. He might have had an accident – maybe he’d been hit by a car, had lost his memory and never remembered the house, or her. He didn’t have his coat – he should have taken his coat. Or maybe he was being held somewhere. Or maybe he was . . . Then she would stop and shake her head. She warmed her hands up on the radiator and held them against her face.

  Forty-five. With a baby. On her own. Again, she went back over that morning, that day. ‘Why didn’t you answer it?’ he’d said about the phone in her dream. He’d rubbed his thumb on the paint on the window. Should she have known when he banked the fire up so high? Why hadn’t she checked to see if they actually needed milk? She remembered the bright fire and the bottles of milk so clearly, but still couldn’t remember the particulars of his face.

  The morning came in grey and damp. A glimmer of brightness in the distance. Still Pearl sat by the fire. Nowhere else to go, but she whispered to Ada that they wouldn’t be staying here, not for long anyway. They wouldn’t end up staying here for long.

  Chapter 31

  The snow went up to her ankles, then her shins. Ada waded out of the lane and onto the road. No fresh grit – the snow packed down and slippy in the middle, a few tyre tracks veering in wide arcs. Gravel and leaves trapped in there like fossils.

  She moved over to the edge of the road, where the snow was more powdery and easier to walk on. Her feet sunk in with each step. Snow fell on her hair and stuck to her coat. Everything was thick and white and silent. She hefted the bag over her shoulder. Tins dug into her back. Luke lived a long way from the shop and there was no way he’d be able to get out in his car. She had moved restlessly through the house, couldn’t stop imagining her mother out here alone; cold, struggling with the heating, with the power, no way of getting out. No one around to help. She’d grabbed things randomly – a tin of spaghetti, a packet of custard, three bars of chocolate – pulled on her boots and gone.

  The road curved through the valley, following the river. It climbed higher on the way to Luke’s. It was difficult going uphill and she slid and grabbed at the hedge, which snagged on her gloves. And it was impossible to see any of the potholes until her foot was already in them, her ankle almost twisting. Once she stumbled and her arms disappeared into deep snow.

  She brushed the snow off her coat. Breathed in icy grains through her nose and mouth. The sloping fields ridged with snow, besieged hay bales, laden trees. A tipping scarecrow, eye-to-eye with the snow, coat flapping in the wind. She walked faster, thinking again about those last few winters. What if there’d been power cuts? What if there’d been no heating or hot water? What she should have done years ago. She clutched the bag and turned round a sharp bend in the road. There was Luke’s place in front of her, the snow covering up most of the blackened remains of the bonfire – there were still streaks of soot on the walls where it had licked at the house.

  She was covered in snow when she knocked on the door. Out of breath, wet hair in her eyes. There was no answer. She looked through the window. There was a light on in the kitchen but no sign of Luke. She tapped on the glass. ‘Luke?’ she called. Saw the reflection of her own anxious face staring back out at her. She banged on the front door, then rattled the handle, but it was locked. She ran round to the back of the house and looked in. The TV was on, the news flickering across the screen. A blanket slumped on the floor by the chair. She should have come before, she should have come before. She shouted Luke’s name and thumped on the glass.

  There was the sound of a key in the front door and it opened and Luke was there, standing on the front step. ‘What the hell’s the matter girl?’ he said. He was pulling on his coat and boots. ‘What’s happened?’ He was wearing pyjama bottoms and a red jumper under the coat.

  ‘I was knocking for ages,’ Ada said. Her breath rasped in her throat. ‘What were you doing?’

  ‘I was upstairs,’ he said. ‘Jesus, what is it?’

  Ada wiped her nose and her eyes with her sleeve. Her legs were shaking. ‘I was knocking for ages,’ she said. ‘I thought something had happened to you.’

  Luke stopped tying his boots. He looked at Ada carefully. Then he untied the laces, took off his coat and beckoned her inside.

  She went in, took her boots off and hung up her sopping coat. Luke gave her
a towel and a blanket to put over her wet legs. He pulled out a chair for her at the kitchen table. There was an oil heater sending out waves of heat, a bright lamp, the radio playing quietly in the background. She rummaged in the bag. ‘I brought you things,’ she said. ‘I thought you might need them.’ She put the tins out on the table, a crushed packet of crackers.

  ‘You didn’t have to do that,’ Luke said.

  Ada unpacked the last tin, then saw the fresh loaf and the pot of jam, smelled the baking smells and saw the oven door was ajar, cooling.

  Luke put the kettle on and got out plates. Opened the crackers, cut slices of bread.

  Ada looked at the motley spread of crap she’d brought. ‘God, you don’t need this,’ she said. She started to pack the bag up again, blinking her eyes. They felt sore from the snow. But Luke stopped her, put the things she’d brought away carefully: the custard, a handful of dusty tea bags. Said he’d have the soup later. His favourite flavour. Then he poured out tea and sat down. ‘I’m surprised you made it through,’ he said. ‘I saw the road wasn’t gritted.’ He put a handful of crackers on his plate and spread them with butter.

  Ada pulled the blanket tighter over her damp legs. She took a slice of bread and spooned on a thick layer of jam. Ate it in four bites. Luke cut her another. She rotated her stiff ankle. ‘I nearly didn’t,’ she said.

  Luke leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. ‘You just walked over three miles in some of the worst snow we’ve had in the valley,’ he said.

  ‘Three miles?’ It hadn’t seemed that far.

  ‘Just to come and see if I was OK,’ Luke went on. ‘I heard that Robbie and Judy can’t even get their truck out. And the pub’s closed. And Larry Reams? Jake’s friend? He slipped over and broke his leg and his arm, got a cast all the way up.’ He bit at his cracker.

  ‘I almost did that,’ Ada said. ‘There are potholes everywhere.’

  Luke leaned back in his chair. ‘Like your mother,’ he said.

  Ada shook her head and rubbed her ankle again. ‘She would have been here hours ago.’

  ‘Not at the beginning,’ Luke said, then looked surprised when Ada leaned forward and asked him what he meant. He touched his hair. ‘I suppose I haven’t ever told anyone this story.’ He reached forward and lifted up his mug, sipped the tea, then held it in both hands. ‘It’s nothing much though,’ he said. ‘Not even a story really.’

  ‘I’d like to hear,’ Ada told him. Thought of when he had told the story about Tristan’s leg, and the one about the bees that someone had smoked out of their chimney, only to see them swarm down the chimney next door. Practically rubbed his hands together with relish and leapt straight in.

  But now he started, faltered, then started again. ‘It was the first time I saw your mother,’ he said. Gulped more tea. ‘She must have only moved into the house a few weeks before. It was winter. A terrible time to move in but there you go. Snow was half a foot. Less than now. But it went on for almost a month. I was driving along the road, on my way into town I think it was. This was a long time ago of course,’ he said. ‘More than thirty years. I hadn’t been in the area that long myself. Had enough of the sea at that point but that’s another story.’ He stopped and glanced over at the wall, then carried on. ‘I was driving slowly through the snow and I came round that bend on the bottom road – you know the one, where the tree leans over and it looks like someone pointing.’

  Ada nodded. She knew the exact place.

  ‘I came round there, and there was your mother.’ He stopped for a moment and took another swig of tea. His voice was hoarser than usual, as if a wheel that normally turned smoothly had a rusty axle. ‘There she was. Standing in the road. You probably don’t believe me, but she was walking along in these thin blue shoes, just straps across them and hardly any sole. No hat, no gloves. Thin trousers. A smart coat, not very thick, the snow going right through it. Not like that brown one you wore over here.’

  Ada had a sudden memory of something her mother used to do, which had always seemed so out of place. She would polish her walking boots. She kept a stack of different-coloured tins of polish in the cupboard under the sink, and every Sunday evening she would get out her boots, choose a tin, and scoop out little divots of expensive polish – the kind people normally used for work shoes or special occasions. She would wipe off the mud and clinging moss, then work the polish in carefully, buffing up the cracked leather until it shone. Ada could almost smell the polish here now, in Luke’s kitchen.

  ‘She was hobbling,’ Luke said. ‘I pulled in and asked if she was alright. It turned out that she was trying to get to the shop. She was going completely the wrong way, but I didn’t tell her. I thought it was best not to tell her.’ He smiled and lines spread all over his face. ‘She didn’t know about the potholes. Couldn’t see them in the snow. She’d twisted her ankle in one of them and could hardly walk on it. I told her I’d give her a lift back to the house. She got in and sat down very carefully. I remember her hands were clasped like this. And some kind of perfume that stayed in my truck for a week.’ Luke shook his head and let out a long breath. ‘All she talked about was how they wouldn’t be here very long, how it was a stop-gap; doing up the house with her husband, Frank, I mean . . . well, your dad.’ He rubbed over his face and went quiet for a moment. Ada smiled and shrugged, waited for him to carry on. ‘He’d seen the house, thought it would be a good place to live for a few years. Cheap, you know, and right by the river. It only took ten minutes to drive her back. But her hair dried, in the heat. It curled up at the back, I always remember that.’ He looked down at his hands. ‘Like I said, it’s not much of a story.’

  Ada was quiet for a long time. Looking round at his small kitchen: a set of china plates painted with cherries, binoculars on the windowsill. A pot of cream paint and a brush – maybe for touching up after the party. There was a framed photograph of a goldcrest on the wall – a picture her mother had taken. She’d always said it was one of her favourites. He must have put it away somewhere safe for the party.

  She glanced at Luke, who was still looking down at his hands. What was it her mother had said about the snow? She’d left a window open and it had come into the kitchen and blown a socket. And it hadn’t even crossed her mind to shovel round the car. ‘She had a suit,’ Ada said suddenly. ‘Hidden in the back of her wardrobe. And sometimes she slept with a lamp on, because she didn’t like the way it was pitch black.’

  Luke nodded. ‘She didn’t like the sound of the owls at first, either,’ he said. ‘And what about her temper? When she would curse the roads and the tiny shop and the power cutting out. And the rain. She used to hate getting wet in the rain. But she couldn’t use an umbrella because it was always too windy.’

  ‘The rain?’ Ada laughed. ‘That’s nothing compared with the fire. I once heard her shout at that thing for over an hour. I went out and came back and she was still going.’

  ‘She put it out once,’ Luke said. ‘Threw a bucket of water over it. Then later she had to dry it out and relight it all over again.’

  ‘And what about when she kicked the car and bruised her toe?’ Ada said. ‘She broke a bit off the number plate.’ Her turn to look down at her hands. The corner was still chipped off the number plate; she’d forgotten until now how it’d happened. She finished her bread. One more spoonful of jam as a chaser. The clocked chimed. ‘I didn’t know you made your own bread,’ she said.

  ‘It’s Pearl’s starter,’ he said. ‘I make one loaf a week, rise it up overnight. None of the digestion problems you get with commercial yeast.’ He got up and brought back the jar of starter, which was full of bubbles. ‘You’ll probably find a jar of it in the fridge at your place,’ he said.

  Ada touched the edge of the blanket. ‘I threw it away.’

  ‘Here,’ Luke said. He opened his and scooped a spoonful of the mixture into a clean jar. ‘Leave it open somewhere warm to get it going.’ He said she should take some of the bread too, he had plenty. Maybe a
bottle of milk, and why not the rest of the jam as well? He had a spare jar himself anyway. He packed the things carefully in a bag and it was only when she was halfway back down the icy road that she realised he’d given her much more than she had taken to him in the first place.

  She hiked back through the snow. Didn’t find it such hard going this time. Her feet in cold, clinging socks, but once she got walking they started to warm up again. It was easier downhill, and she leaned her weight back so that she didn’t slip.

  It was getting dark already, the sky turning olive-coloured. Snow poured down silently. If it carried on like this they wouldn’t be able to get out for days. Ada walked along the road. Noticed the blue shadows on the snow, the hollow tree by the fence, leaves encased in muddy ice, as if they were trapped in amber. There was the tree that looked like someone pointing. She stopped under it for a moment. There was the caved-in fence where people took the corner too fast. There was the scarecrow. There was the gate made out of an old bed frame. Small way-marks, like a different set of road signs.

  At the top of the valley she stopped and looked down. The trees white and feathery in the snow, the shape of the river through them. She knew where the house was exactly, even though she couldn’t see it. Just a faint twist of smoke from the chimney.

  She came down the lane towards the house, which was just as low and slumped and askew. But the windows glowing yellow. She took off her sodden boots and rolled up her wet trousers, called to Pepper and heard her answer in an odd voice. There was no one in the kitchen. She called up the stairs. Heard the familiar noises of her mother moving around in the study. But when she looked in, it was Pepper. She was standing next to the window and there was a freezing draught coming in. A cracked hole in one corner and broken glass on the floor.

  ‘I was going to fix it,’ Pepper said.