Seas of Snow

by Kerensa Jennings

  Metaphors

  Gracie had had the Rilke book for about a week now. The epitaph had moved her deeply, and she had been interested to read about the story connecting Rilke to a rose in his death. They said he had died because of the prick of a thorn.

  She wondered if he had known a rose would seal his fate when he wrote the epitaph, and she wondered how true the story was. And if the story was true, and if he hadn’t known the role a rose was to play in his demise, then how very sad and ironic.

  She wondered what she should write if she were to compose her own epitaph. She liked roses, too, she thought. White ones in particular. Maybe she could create a short poem inspired by Rilke’s?

  She burst into laughter at the idea. She was only a schoolgirl, for goodness’s sake. How could she think about writing a proper poem?

  She reached into her bookshelf and pulled out a small, dark green, hardback book punctuated by her own childish scrawl, and leafed through it in amusement.

  She had written little rhymes and limericks on and off for a couple of years now. Very childish and silly, she was almost embarrassed to look at them.

  Hound chases fox

  Fox chases shelter

  Hound barks

  Fox falls

  Hound runs

  Fox stalls

  Hound sinks teeth in

  Fox bites back

  Blood is swirling

  Fox sees black

  That was her most recent one, she had written it in English in the third year. She had quite liked the rhythm of it and there was something neat and simple about the imagery she’d created – but it was so straightforward and easy and she felt quietly ashamed at how thin and uninteresting it was in comparison to the complex beauty of Rilke’s words.

  But she remembered why she’d written it and what influenced her at the time. Mr Hall had asked the class to write a verse based on something from their own experience, but to use a metaphor. They had spent the previous few lessons looking at metaphor in the poetry of people like Marvell and Donne. It sort of meant a way of telling the story without actually telling the story.

  In her case, she racked her memory for a suitable experience. She could think of plenty. Some of which all too easily. For her, the raven and Joe had almost taken on a dual identity. One was the other and the other was one. So a large part of her was already consumed in the power of metaphor.

  For her, because Joe inspired the same fears and terrors in her that the raven did, she found herself intertwining them in her mind. Joe–raven. Raven–Joe. One and the same. The power of metaphor …

  But she didn’t want to write about that in English. Apart from anything else, it wouldn’t help her special plan of pretending everything was alright to bring it out into the open, and anyway, she felt the deep, private aspects of the story were too – well private – to share. With anyone. Anyone except her diary, perhaps. She wouldn’t even tell Billy the full extent of what had been happening. How it had been a slow, inexorable journey with signposts on the way. Signposts her mother preferred to ignore.

  But the journey was set and the raven was clawing at her heart, tearing her apart in slow, defiant strikes. It was a course that was progressing slowly, but progressing it was, and for Gracie, there was no obvious end in sight.

  Her home no longer felt like home. No safe refuge there. It had become a clean, chemical impression of hearth and heart. A game of make-believe. Of nightmares. And she was the animal being experimented upon.

  So no, there was no shortage of metaphors cramping into her head. But what would she be prepared to share with the class, with Mr Hall?

  She remembered being chased by that boy ramming a dead bird down her back when she was little. She wondered, briefly, whether that was her first encounter with the raven. Was it a raven? She knew the bird was black but couldn’t be sure. She was too terrified to know, running away as fast as her little toddler legs would carry her.

  But that feeling of being hunted quarry had stayed with her, and if that was her first meeting with the raven, he had done a fine job of scaring her half to death. Even through his own death he clawed at her heart.

  She shuddered at the memory.

  She decided she could use this story as the starting point for the exercise, and would be okay about telling everyone what had happened. What she wouldn’t reveal is the sad continuation of the story. How the blood swirling and the fox seeing black was real, was her, and had happened more than once.

  She had let her mind drift away, imagining the pacing of the chase and the emotion she wanted to convey. It was then that the idea of a fox hunt came to her. She had remembered learning about fox hunts a while ago. They had been mentioned in a book she had read, and she had asked her Ma about them. So she knew a bit about the general premise. A team of huntsmen on horses would use hounds to help them chase down a fox for the sheer sport of it. ‘The thrill of the chase,’ her Ma had said. So here, now, wondering what metaphor to use, the hunt seemed perfect. It was all about one small, harmless creature that hadn’t done anything other than just to be, caught up in a game beyond its control. As far as Gracie could tell, there wouldn’t be much fun for the poor fox, no thrills of the chase for the prey.

  So she worked hard thinking up the hunt story she could use to capture the feelings of her own experience. The words, the rhythm, the passion she wanted to invoke.

  She wondered if that was the sort of thinking Wordsworth had done, and Rilke, when they were composing their poems.

  She knew she wanted to share the panic of the fox and the single-mindedness of the hound. She also wanted to give a sense of finality to it, to leave people wondering if the fox had died but not actually saying so. It took ages to do but she had been happy with the simplicity of her effort, and hadn’t minded sharing it with everyone.

  Mr Hall had said it was ‘promising’ but that she could have worked harder making proper rhymes.

  She thought that was a bit rich given that Wordsworth and Byron and Donne and even Shakespeare mucked around with rhymes all the time. She thought about her own attempt and wondered if it would have been much better if she had had pure rhymes throughout. The mind shapes took hold in her and the hunt came to life through the pulsing and the urgency of the rhythm and the staccato of the words. She felt the panic in the fox, sensed the bloody determination of the hound.

  Nope, she decided, throwing in some extra perfect rhymes wouldn’t necessarily have made it better than what it was.

  Now, rereading it, she was convinced it wasn’t purer rhyming that it needed but better thinking.

  And with that, she turned to the thought she had about attempting a verse inspired by her new poet hero.

  She let her mind float away into nothingness, waiting for something to coalesce. A stillness flowed into her and she found herself falling into a slumber. She vaguely thought about the idea of falling … what was that line again, about life not forgetting me? It will not let you fall …

  Droplets

  He was staring, hard, at that gap between her thighs.

  The froth of the foam obscured the view, achingly teasing him with what lay beneath.

  He could hardly bear the thought of it. His whole being was consumed with the surge of anticipation. His appetite needed to be slaked. The pulsing inside was rhythmic, totemic. As if an electrical current was ignited within, coursing through his veins with gripping, groaning power.

  His hardness was almost at the point. But he needed to watch and wait some more, for this to reach perfection.

  Her wide eyes were wearing the look of a creature caught in a trap. Eyelashes, dark, framing her angel pools of green loveliness.

  Her creamy, sud-soaked skin was gleaming in the light, white peaks delicately frothing at her waist, a pile of snowy softness caressing her whole body.

  She looked so small. Her scent a babyish almondness intermingling with the lemony tang in the air.

  Her devastatingly pretty nipples, calling him to devour thei
r budding roundness, suck their apple hard pointiness. He found himself gazing at them, mesmerised.

  He stripped to the waist, exposing his own, sculptured torso, his nipples in communion with hers. His muscles flexed in spasms, his strong arms preparing for the task ahead.

  Then he reached inside and allowed his aching, pulsing, secret self to stand proud, hard against his belly.

  He reached down to under the softness below and began his slow stroking, careful not to squeeze and careful not to let go. He needed to let that surge ride inside for now.

  He looked at the effect his stance was having on the girl. The frightened creature caught in a trap was shivering, quivering.

  Her wet curls tangling around her shoulders, water droplets decorating that sweet skin. A slow trickle working its way down between those nipples and down to her stomach.

  His attention was caught again with the idea of her warm, pink place.

  Groaned aloud.

  Then, a voice. A child’s voice.

  Fuck, this isn’t in the plan, he snarled to himself. For it to be as it should be, there had to be no interruptions, no distractions. Just a perfect calm.

  He heard the girl’s name being called. Someone else calling his angel, his most perfect of accomplices.

  He had watched and waited for years for this moment, had planned it with his usual meticulousness. It was the culmination of timeless longing which had developed into an urgent, brutal need that had to be satiated. And now the calm was being compromised …

  ‘Gracie, Gracie!’ the child was calling.

  Then a soft thud, thud, thud up the stairs.

  Gracie stiffened. ‘Billy!’ she whispered under her breath. It was the first word she had uttered and it punctured the silence.

  Joe looked at her in disgust. You stupid little slut, don’t you go ruining this, don’t you even think about it.

  If Gracie had thought for a moment that by yelling out she could save herself, she would have done, but she was gripped by those claws into constricting breathlessness. All she could do was sigh Billy’s name in frail, hushed, futile tones.

  They both listened out as Billy stopped at the door, waiting to hear if he could discern anything.

  She could sense his fearful anxiety.

  Billy, save me, she was thinking, hard. God, help him hear my thoughts, I’m pushing them through the door to him, hear me, Billy, hear me. I’m trapped with this man who has been keeping me his wet prisoner, standing guard over me. Boring his black, black eyes into every part of me. This is bad, Billy, this is very, very bad.

  They heard the footsteps retreat and the thud, thud, thud going back downstairs.

  Then, silence.

  Joe looked at his damp angel and fixed his face into a sneer. She wondered what he was going to do, what he was going to say.

  ‘This was the beginning of something very special between us, Gracie. Can you feel it?’

  He looked at her intently, willing her to understand. For her to be this most perfect of accomplices she had to grasp her role in this.

  He reached down to her and traced his fingers around the curve of her jaw.

  ‘Pretty Gracie.’

  His rough, dirty fingers slowly followed the length of her neck and he extended downwards, to have that first touch of her teasing right nipple.

  Slowly circling around the edge, watching her shudder and hearing her squeal.

  Perfect.

  He gripped the centre with a tenderness that surprised him, and felt that electrical connection shoot through his hardness.

  He held her, right there, squeezing the rosebud pinkness soft then hard, soft then hard. His left hand gripping himself with an agonising roughness.

  He could see her looking down at what he was doing and sensed her ecstasy, admiring his hard, throbbing cock.

  ‘This is just the start, Gracie, just the start. I’ve got to go for now but it won’t be long before we are together again … I’ll come back soon. Be ready for me.’

  She watched him awkwardly stuff that revolting inflamed purple animal back into his trousers and unlock the door. He carefully removed the key, putting it into his pocket.

  ‘Not long, not long,’ he whispered in that baritone voice. ‘Not long …’

  And with that, he was gone.

  Sandwiches

  Aidan looked at his partner, the story having come to life with a vividness which pierced the space between them.

  ‘What did you do?’

  He knew the rest, but he could tell Billy had the appetite to go on. For some reason he had been particularly exercised about it all in the last couple of weeks. Aidan wondered if the conversation was getting particularly difficult at the hospice. He knew Billy struggled desperately with his visits there and really had to muster something deep within to keep going. Duty? Honour? Kindness? He wasn’t sure what. Probably a combination of all three, he suspected. But they always exhausted him and left a shadow in his heart.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t mind me going through it again? I’m not sure why I feel the need to talk about it. I’m sorry, Aidan …’

  ‘Honestly, I mean it, go on. I want to hear what happened next.’

  Billy felt very fortunate to have this supportive man by his side. He took a small sip of wine, and continued …

  ‘We clung to each other, frightened. It had happened just a few steps away from us – every blow crashing down seized into us, too. The sound of it was – oh God – it was excruciating …

  ‘Of course neither of us were strangers by then to her Ma’s purple bruises. But this was something that would wrench us both out of sleep in the coming months. The realness of it seeped into every part of us, lodging firmly in place. Like a poison.

  ‘Gracie told me later it had been the worst attack on her Ma since Joe had come back into their lives.

  ‘We left her as she asked, both feeling guilty and awkward about doing so. But it was clear we had no choice in the matter. Gracie’s Ma was a broken little bird on the floor, but her will couldn’t be ignored. We owed her that dignity.

  ‘We walked out of the house and pulled the door gently behind us.

  ‘We looked at each other wordlessly. I remember shrugging my shoulders in helplessness. What should we do? I wondered, not sure whether to ask out loud.

  ‘“I think it’s best that we leave her, as she asked,” Gracie ­suddenly said, looking out down the road. It occurred to me that she might be looking out for Joe.

  ‘So we slowly made our way over to my house. It was twilight by then. I’ve just remembered for some reason the white rose bushes were looking lovely, it’s funny the things you remember, isn’t it? and I spotted the large, fragile heads of the flowers swaying in the breeze.

  ‘The front door was open, as it often was at this time. We tiptoed inside.

  ‘There was the raucous sound of John and Simon having some play fight about something or other.

  ‘Everything looked neat and ordered.

  ‘I could hear my Ma’s voice tinkling over the sounds of the wireless and the odd monotone reply from my Da.

  ‘We went into the kitchen.

  ‘The moment they saw us, they stiffened. I could tell they were noticing something unusual about us.

  ‘It’s true, usually we would be giggling together, whispering conspiratorially and sharing secrets.

  ‘Today we stood there, limply, not knowing what to do.

  ‘Gracie’s face was damp from the tears she had shed. I think I had gone a bit red from the awkwardness of the situation.

  ‘“What is it, pet?” Ma looked at us, urgently.

  ‘Neither of us spoke.

  ‘“What’s happened? Tell us?” she coaxed, gently. She was clearly sensing the reluctance we were both feeling to do or say the wrong thing.

  ‘“That man … that man …” began Gracie, her voice trembling.

  ‘She was struggling to get the words out so I pitched in to help her along.

  ‘“We we
re playing dens in Gracie’s front room and hiding behind the sofa when her uncle came in smelling of beer and ash. He didn’t see us and we were quiet as mice.

  ‘“But he was making a lot of noise, banging about and throwing things. Then he went through to the kitchen and started shouting at Gracie’s Ma. She seemed very frightened and was begging him, telling him we were there. It was if she had hoped that whatever he was going to do would be stopped if he knew.

  ‘“Then, we heard the sound of hitting. Over and over and over …”

  ‘I felt the emotion choke inside my throat. Gracie looked at me gratefully. We exchanged looks and I gave her my best big brave smile.’

  At that, Aidan twinkled at his companion warmly. He had always been such a lovely person, and he loved him for it.

  ‘At first, my parents didn’t know what to do or say. Then the questions came tumbling out. Was he still there? Had he hurt us? Where was Gracie’s Ma? Did she need to see a doctor? What did you see exactly? Where did we think Joe had gone?

  ‘We reassured them that we were both fine, other than shocked and appalled at what we had heard. And we told them we thought Joe had gone. Gracie explained that he would take off for long stints at a time. And she explained that her Ma often had unexplained bruises and cuts which she attempted to cover up. It was slowly dawning on all of us that Joe was a dangerous man who was repeatedly taking out his temper for some reason on his sister, Gracie’s Ma.

  ‘They were asking themselves if they should call the police and debating the merits of interfering or not. It seemed like hours but looking back now I’m fairly certain it was just a matter of moments. They wondered what, if anything, she had said to us.

  ‘“She told us to come home here, to leave her alone. She wanted us to go away for a bit and was going to clear herself up,” we babbled together.

  ‘They both looked terribly worried and we heard them murmuring. “I knew something was wrong … she hasn’t been her old self … she kept hurting herself, she would tell me she’d fallen over, had slipped … I never liked him, never …”