Seas of Snow

by Kerensa Jennings

  Billy worked it out carefully in his head. December to ­September, Gracie’s birthday.

  ‘So you think Da may have been Gracie’s Da, meaning Gracie …’ He let the words linger in the air. Wordlessly, he suddenly knew. He and Gracie were brother and sister. Bonded forever in a way they never even knew.

  By now tears were rolling down his mother’s cheeks.

  ‘Maybe, pet, maybe.’

  Billy went to hug her, hard, realising that she had known all along about the love her Da had felt for Gracie’s Ma. What a terrible burden to carry all this time. And for Billy, a new discovery – he had no idea when Gracie and her Ma had come to May Close, no inkling that the love affair between his Da and her Ma must have started shortly after his birth.

  There was a hot fugginess in the air as hugs and tears were exchanged.

  Aidan understood at a deeper level the emotional impact not just the disclosure about Gracie would have on Billy, but the implications of his feelings about Gracie’s Ma’s behaviour. Somewhere in his innermost heart, despite the wretchedness he felt about her refusal to act – there were times when he felt he had despised her for her obstinacy – he had always managed to forgive her and somehow understood.

  Perhaps there was some sort of unconscious collusion between them. Perhaps a tie, or a bond, where he had understood that she would have wanted him close by, the father of her child. His father.

  Billy wondered whether Gracie’s Ma had ever told his Da. Whether it was an unspoken, unacknowledged truth between them, or whether the toils of war meant the mathematical ­certainty of it hadn’t perhaps entered his Da’s consciousness.

  Billy also wondered how his own Ma had coped. Had stayed friends with the woman who had betrayed her.

  After all, it was Mary Harper who had young Gracie to stay and to play to help her friend out in times of need. The night of the miscarriage came to mind. He realised with a jolt – of course – that the baby who never came was likely to be his Da’s as well.

  And he wondered, momentarily, whether the constant nightmares he would have as a young child – scared the father he didn’t know would not come back from the War – were somehow a product of any of this. Whether the anxiety the grownups were going through had somehow permeated his childish mind, fuelling his worries and his nightmares.

  Even though he was now a mature, sensible person with a life well led and generally happy existence, tonight’s revelations were uncomfortable and painful. Bittersweet, too. How he wished he had known before …

  He didn’t like to think about the life his own Ma must have led. He remembered her irritation at times when jobs around their own house didn’t get done because Gracie’s Ma needed driving somewhere or had chores that required the hand of a man to help. But as a child, he put it down to the fact everyone’s mums get grouchy and moan a lot at their husbands. As far as he and his brothers were concerned, it was all nice and normal. They hadn’t detected their mother’s loneliness, hadn’t seen her misery.

  Then a few years after the War, Peter Harper ended up ­succumbing to lung cancer, brought on, they said, by the grit and sand of the North African front. It had irritated his lungs horribly. The doctors had recommended he take up smoking to try to ease the pain, but the disease continued to spread and within a year his big, strong Da had died quietly and softly, fragile and skeletal in a hospital bed.

  Everyone in the Close had rallied around, trying to help. And Mary was left alone with her boys. Billy realised now that she had been left alone for years before.

  He couldn’t remember how Gracie’s Ma had taken the news of his Da’s death. Whether she had visited him at the hospital. Whether she was at the funeral. He couldn’t remember. At the time, his own life was in such turmoil, the suffering of others barely made an impression on him.

  The dinginess of the room took on an even more sombre tone. The candles they had laid out on the dining room table were beginning to flicker their last.

  The tarte tatin lay untouched.

  So many questions darted around his mind.

  But he reflected that he and Aidan had been right – if his Ma had wanted to discuss anything, somehow or other she would find a way. And now he had at least some of the answers. He wondered if there was anything he could do …

  And then, as ever, Aidan was there, doing and saying the right thing.

  He was comforting Mrs Harper, telling her what a wonderful job she had done raising her boys, how brave and kind she had been.

  It put Billy in mind of Gracie’s favourite poem – that line about ‘beautiful and brave’. And he thought about that other line she had taken comfort in a thousand times: life has not forgotten you …

  Billy joined in with Aidan’s sentiments, telling his Ma what an inspiration she had been to him. A war widow at such a young age, barely in her forties when she was left on her own. Billy had been 17, he remembered – so John and Simon would have been 18 and 20. All three had been working by then – him down in London – so they all made efforts to look after her and make sure she wasn’t lonely. On reflection, he wondered whether they had collectively done a good enough job.

  But before his mood darkened further, there was Aidan, slicing up the tarte and offering up portions to everyone. His Ma chuckled, saying, ‘Go on, spoil me then, why not?’

  They all tucked into the squidgy, syrupy, tartness of the apple, marvelling at its crunchy deliciousness.

  But despite the bonhomie and chatter, Billy and his Ma couldn’t help but dwell on a bittersweetness of another kind.

  Belongings

  Joe awoke on his first morning of freedom with a headache and numbness he hadn’t felt for years. He felt dizzy and unsteady, an airy light-headedness causing him to sway and stumble. His head felt spongy and achey and throbbing.

  This wasn’t part of the plan.

  He had slept rough, having been thrown out of the tumbledown pub just after midnight. But with nowhere to go, he found shelter in a barn nearby and hunkered down there on straw. He didn’t have much need for physical comforts – after all, he’d spent the last six years on a springless mattress in an airless room with a slop bucket for a bathroom.

  But even he was knocked back by the rank ripeness of the stench in that barn when he woke up. It wasn’t helping his nausea.

  So he made his way out tentatively, craving the taste of water.

  The light outside seared his eyes, yellow and bloodshot from too much drink.

  So much pain.

  He found a stream not far away and drank with gusto. Then collapsed onto his side and snored away for another few hours, the beer coursing through his veins and pulsating into dilution.

  When he woke for the second time, the light was duskier. He didn’t have a watch so had no idea of the time. But his head was feeling less fuggy and he knew he had to advance his plans. The boring, logistical stuff you have to do – not the plans he had been crafting in prison.

  For those plans to succeed, he knew he needed to get some decent clothes, tidy himself up and find lodgings and a job. Shouldn’t be too hard. If he did it in that order. Good tidy up first.

  He had spent all his money, so for the first couple of days he would need to rely on the kindness of strangers. It occurred to him that he could spin a line about being a war hero. That would get him drinks and sympathy and maybe a whole lot more.

  He was good at spinning a line. Had had plenty of experience.

  He thought back to the time with his sister.

  His little sister had always been a sweet and shy little thing. He knew that where he had been blessed with confident good looks, she had a softer, inner beauty that only shone through when she laughed and smiled.

  If he was being honest, she was a bit plain.

  She wasn’t the kind of girl to warrant wolf whistles in the street. But she did have pretty eyes, he’d give her that.

  As she matured, she developed a slender, petite physique. She wasn’t athletic in any way – but she had
a sunny nature and she was caring and kind. They couldn’t have been more different.

  She had had the odd boyfriend, but nothing serious. She was independent spirited, though, and read endless books. From a very young age, she had set her heart on a life on the buses. Although she was shy by nature, there was something about meeting people in that fleeting, passing way that appealed to her. You could exchange pleasantries without having to go into deeper conversation or share too much.

  It was a lightness of being that she carried with her, and working as a conductress allowed her to flower.

  Once she had been working for about a year, she was able to afford to go and get her own place. She must have been about 18, he guessed.

  Since she had been about 10, he had taunted and teased her. As he was growing his taste for submission in his accomplices, he practised his watching and waiting on her. He would lie in wait for her, to frighten her. He would seek out her bed, her satchel or her shoes and leave the disembodied head of a mouse, a bloodied hide of a hare, a roughly-cut pompom tail of a rabbit for her to discover.

  He enjoyed seeing her squirm with disgust and cry out in revulsion. More than once, she had vomited at the sight of the presents he would leave for her.

  She had decided very young that as soon as she could afford it, she would move away to escape this torture.

  For her mother’s sake, she put on a mask. But she knew she couldn’t live a life like that forever. She needed to seek out peace and tranquillity, even if it meant being on her own.

  It was that inner feeling of contentment she was missing. She knew others her age did not face such struggle, such torment.

  And she couldn’t understand why her mother didn’t punish him or make him stop. What was wrong with her?

  So as soon as she could, she started work on the buses and saved and saved and saved. She didn’t tell her Ma or Joe what she was doing. She had everything arranged in secret, so that she could make her escape.

  When the time came, she felt sad. The bank manager had helped her find a tiny place in a secluded Close, far on the outskirts of North Shields. She gave him everything she had, and he arranged everything. All she had to do was go.

  She collected her things together on a sunny Tuesday. Her Ma was on one of her regular trips out to the shops. Joe was out for the day. Probably on that construction site he’d been working on recently.

  She wrote her Ma a short note, to explain. She couldn’t decide whether or not to leave an address.

  And that was that. On a bright, cloudless Tuesday in May, the teenager set off with her small bag of belongings and into her new life.

  The year was 1938. Joe was coming under pressure to take on a steadier job. Nothing could have been further from his mind.

  He wanted and needed to be in control of life – not just his own, but those he chose to make his accomplices.

  He had been watching and waiting with his sister for years, practising his ability to tease out the torment for an agonising age. Savoured her fear and her distress.

  She couldn’t have known that he was building up to a de­­licious denouement for her – the next stage in her story. He had been planning it for months, with every new bloodied gift a stepping stone to the grand finale.

  Arriving back from work that Tuesday afternoon, his mood turned sour when his Ma told him his sister had gone.

  Raw, monstrous rage swelled up inside him.

  ‘What do you mean, gone!’ he yelled at her, furious that his plans had been thrown into disarray, and murderously angry that the little slut thought she could defy him.

  Think you can run away, do you, little bitch? Eh? He ­pictured her face. Well, think again. I’ll find you wherever you are, Sweetie – you will never be able to be free. We are bonded, you and I, we are blood.

  His Ma was distressed, weeping helplessly. First her husband had turned out … the way he had turned out. Then Joe had started developing a cruel, ugly aspect of his personality she recognised only too well. Like father, like son. Both charming. Both beautiful. Both deadly.

  And now this. Her beloved daughter had abandoned her.

  ‘Don’t you think about anyone other than yourself, Joe?’ she asked, despair in her voice.

  Joe didn’t care about that. He was boiling with fury.

  ‘Where has she gone? Tell me!’

  He pinned her against the wall and grasped her throat, applying more and more pressure to her soft, white skin.

  Her eyes darted from side to side and he saw that familiar fear cross her face. That fear he’d seen a hundred times now. She let out a little sound and gasped, trying to shake her head.

  ‘Tell me!’

  Eyes widening, she slackened slightly against the wall. He let her go, disgusted with her. And disgusted with himself, that he hadn’t moved faster on fulfilling his plan.

  He had to think through how he could hunt that whore down. It wasn’t going to be easy. The months slipped by, and his anger grew inexorably. If there was one thing Joe couldn’t tolerate, it was defiance of his will. How dare she?

  He simply couldn’t believe she’d disappear into nowhere, leaving no trace. His Ma must know where she was, she must …

  It occurred to him there had to be a note of where she was going, somewhere. Or a letter.

  One day, months later, there was a particularly annoying news item on the wireless about missing relatives. He decided enough was enough.

  He was going to find that bitch.

  He started searching drawers, pulling them onto the floor and tipping their contents into a shambolic pile.

  The elegant art deco walnut looked incongruous in this modest little house, and he knew his Ma treasured the furniture she’d inherited from her own parents. But he didn’t hesitate for a second.

  One of its legs twisted then creaked into splintery shards. Almost comically, it tipped over, slowly, then crashed onto its side, a dozen plates and water glasses tumbling out and shattering onto the floor.

  Then, more insistently, he knocked over the walnut console in revulsion, shoving papers off the kitchen Formica. A china tea set, balanced perfectly on a cream melamine tray, crashed onto the linoleum. A cup bounced against the skirting board and smashed into pieces.

  He flung an ashtray with the ash and remnants of a solitary cigarette against a wall, a cloud of bitter, grey particles floating gently to the ground, incongruously delicate. A slow-motion mist wafting gently down as the carnage unfolded around.

  Joe was getting into his stride now, punching anything and everything. His jaw jutted out with a determination like he’d never felt before. He marched up the stairs and pulled the fussy valances off the bed and tore down the curtains. A sea of beige frothy netting heaped onto the floor.

  Becoming desperate, he seized his Ma’s dressing table with both hands and emptied its contents. Some cheap looking trinkets scattered across the rug.

  His eye alighted on a chest of drawers. That’s got to be it …

  With rage pumping through his veins, he pulled out the sweaters and the underwear and the scarves.

  Nothing.

  He let out a primal scream, then suddenly, silence. He composed himself as quickly as he had let himself descend into bedlam. A slow smirk crossed his face.

  He looked around the room and admired his handiwork. All the furniture was tipped over or onto its side. All the clothes and papers were layered on top of each other in messy heaps.

  He was impressed at what he’d achieved in just a few minutes.

  But then he caught himself and remembered he was still no further on finding where his sister was. You bitch, Sweetie. Just you wait. I will make you pay for this. Just you wait.

  He stomped down the stairs, his fury beginning to rise again. How dare she defy him. How dare she try to escape.

  In the doorway at the bottom of the stairs, his Ma was standing, wordlessly. Her beret perched at an angle on her set waves.

  She was looking around the room. Destruction e
verywhere.

  Joe had smashed apart some of the railings on the stairwell, and the dining room table was shoved against the wall, two chairs lying awkwardly on top of each other on the floor.

  Broken china everywhere.

  She caught his eye. ‘Oh, Joe …’ she said quietly, sheer lack of understanding paralysing her.

  Then, more angrily, ‘Joe! Joe! What the hell were you thinking?’

  He had a coldness about him, a stillness. It was hard to believe so much fury had been unleashed by just one person. His calmness was unnerving.

  He shrugged and raised an eyebrow. Then slid his back on the wall, looking at her, as he took each stair one by one.

  There was silence between them, the only sound coming from the slight rub of his shoulder blades on the paintwork.

  Then, suddenly, a clatter pierced the air as a picture frame knocked off the wall and cartwheeled down the stairs.

  ‘Noooo!’ His Ma let out a shriek, and moved to grab the small wooden rectangle. He saw flashes of green and gold and remembered the picture was a favourite of his Ma’s – a farmyard scene with some white geese.

  And then, he saw it. A small piece of paper wedged into the back of the frame. He stretched down for it, snatching it out of his Ma’s reach. She let out a moan, an agonising noise that penetrated the quiet. Joe ignored her and, taking his time, eased the paper out. Unfolded it. Then smirked for a second time.

  He had it. The address.

  A raven’s hunger gleamed in his eye.

  He snatched the note into his pocket, unseeing and unhearing. Marched past his Ma without a second glance. Oblivious to the chaos he was leaving behind, and unaware of the pained expression on her face, tears coursing down her cheeks.

  He was a man on a mission, that focus and discipline already honed. All that mattered was that he could hunt his quarry.

  He had been able to outwit the bitches, and now he would taste vengeance.

  Snowflakes

  Thinking back on it now, he smiled.

  His head was still sore from the excesses of the night before, but he had his plans and all he had to do was tidy himself, spin some more lines and let nature take its course …